Abstract:
Background: Compliance of health workers to malaria treatment guidelines is essential for improving outcome of treatment and prevention of development of resistance to antimalarial medicines.
Objective: This study focuses on determining the proportion of health workers who comply with malaria guidelines and identifying factors that influence compliance to malaria guidelines.
Methods: Health facility-based cross-sectional study design was conducted in two health facilities in Akaki Kality Sub City, Addis Ababa. Data was collected retrospectively from 438 medical records of patients who seek treatment for febrile illness in the period January 2017 to August 2018. Data entry into EPI Info was performed and the data was transferred to SPSS version 20 after cleaning. Descriptive statistics was used to determine frequencies and averages, and multivariate logistics regression (at 95% CI) was used to check for the associated factors.
Results: Compliance of prescribers to malaria treatment guidelines was 91.6%. Microscopic examination was performed for 424 of the cases. 24.4% of malaria positive cases and 73.3% malaria negative cases had received antibiotics. The average number of medicines prescribed was 1.9. Compliance to malaria treatment guidelines was not associated with qualification, experience, or age of health workers but with training received on malaria case management (COR=3.32, P=0.027)
Conclusion and Recommendations: Compliance of health workers to the national malaria guidelines was not as per the expectation of the malaria strategic plan. Further studies and interventions targeted at improving the practice of health workers are necessary.
......................................... Thesis available at ACIPH Library