Assessment of Factors Affecting Quality of Clinical Laboratory Service in Health Facilities at South West Shewa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia.
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Date
2021-01
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Background: A quality medical laboratory service is an important part of the health care system.Commitment of the health personnel, administration and policy makers contribute to thecontinuous improvement of diagnosis. In developing countries like Ethiopia, the laboratoryquality system remains weak due to several factors. Therefore, assessing the factors affectingquality of medical laboratory service is highly important in order to improve service quality.
Objective: To assess factors affecting the quality of medical laboratory service in South WestShewa Zone Health Facilities, Oromia, Ethiopia, January 2020 to May 2020.
Methods: An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted at South West Shewa ZoneHealth Facilities from January 2020 to May 2020. A pretested, structured questionnaire andchecklist was used to collect the socio-demographic information of the study participants and toassess factors affecting the provision of quality medical laboratory services. Data were checkedfor completeness, entered, and analyzed using SPSS version 24. The strength of associationbetween the dependent and independent variables was assessed using binary and multiple logisticregression analysis. A p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: A total of 85 medical laboratory professionals participated in the study. Of these, 68(80%) were males and 27 (31.8%), were laboratory technologists. Of them 78 (91.8%) were notsatisfied with their salary. Thirty-two (37.6%) of the participants reported that their laboratorydid not provide quality laboratory service. Lack of Quality Manual, Lack of staff recognition andnot conducting Internal Quality control activitieswere the major factors significantly associatedwith poor quality laboratory service (p < 0.05).High work load was identified as the highesttechnical factor influenced the provision of quality laboratory services 56.1%, followed byEquipment Failure 20% and from administrative factors shortage of resources was rated highest39% followed by poor staff commitment 23.4%.
Conclusions:More thanOne third of the study participants reported that their laboratory did notprovide quality laboratory services. Lack of quality manual, not conducting internal qualitycontrol activities and Lack of staff recognitionare the major factors associated with poor qualityof laboratory services. Hence timely intervention of these factors is warranted since a third of theparticipants believe their laboratory does not provide quality service.
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Keywords
Medical Laboratory, Quality Management system, Ethiopia