Assessment of Inventory Management Practices of Essential Medicines for Mental Health in Public Hospitals of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2023
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Introduction: Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own
abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to make a
contribution to his or her community. Even in settings like low- and middle-income countries where the
burden from infectious and nutritional conditions remains overwhelming, at least 9% of the overall
burden of disease is attributable to mental disorders. Global mental health has documented that effective
interventions exist for the large majority of mental health disorders. However About two-thirds of people
with diagnosable mental health disorders do not receive treatment.
Objective: To assess inventory management practices of essential medicines for mental health at public
health facilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Methods: A sequential mixed study was employed. A facility based quantitative method was conducted
using checklist, structured and semi structured questionnaire followed by qualitative method to explain
the challenges and opportunities. Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet and SPSS version 20 was used to encode
and analyze the data. Spearman’s rho was used to determine the association between inventory
management practice and performance. The critical value (p<0.05) was considered significant.
Results: Of twenty six medicines of mental health included under this study 28% were considered vital
by public hospitals and 42.5% available on the day of visit. The mean stock out and frequency of stock
out was found to be 0.73 and 0.86 respectively with average stock out duration of 95 days within six
months of study period. Chlorpromazine, olanzapine, sertraline, clonazepam, Lithium carbonate,
Lamotrigine, Phenobarbitone and promethazine tablets were out of stock at least once at each facility.
The mean wastage rate of medicine for mental health was 4.5% with a value of 494,231.40 birr within
six months of review, irregular consumption was the major reason for expiry.
Conclusion: Essential medicines of mental health were routinely not available in public hospitals and
the practice was found poor and different between categories of medicines and from one public hospital
to the other. Antipsychotics were found to be most available and anticholinergics were not found in any
of the facilities under study on the day visit. Second generation antipsychotics and antidepressants were
most frequently stocked out items. The responsiveness by the supplier was poor as it was not able to
refill those items whenever the facilities requested nevertheless of frequent stock outs, hence stock out
at the source was the major reason for stock out.
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Keywords
Inventory management practice, mental health medicines, stock recording accuracy, stock out rate, stock wastage, availability