Knowledge And Practice Towards Integrated Management Of Neonatal And Childhood Illnesses Among The Health Workers Of Busolwe Hospital, Butaleja District .

Abstract

Introduction: Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illness (IMNCI) was adopted by the Ministry of Health Uganda as one of the strategy for improving child survival and to reduce child morbidity and mortality. The purpose of this study was to assess the health workers’ knowledge and practices in the implementation of IMNCI strategy to address Childhood Illnesses in Busolwe hospital, Butaleja district.

Study design: The study adopted a descriptive cross sectional design that employed quantitative methods of data collection. The study consisted of 59 respondents which comprised of health workers who are directly involved in the implementation of the IMNCI strategy. The sampling procedures used to select these respondents were simple random and purposive. For the purpose of receiving further information, documentary review of MoH documents and the under-fives registers from daily used registers with the availability of all information treatment inclusive.

Results: The study came up with various findings; health workers are found to have poor knowledge of IMNCI strategy and commented it is a better approach in managing common childhood illnesses if they are trained. The study also observed that there is malpractice in assessment of IMNCI indicators attributed to lack of knowledge. However, the bottlenecks observed are: lack of training and weak supportive supervision, poor adherence of the standard treatment guideline and misuse/overuse of antibiotics. Also the study outlines lack of pre-referral treatment for urgent referral, shortage of the essential drugs, poor counseling and advice to the caregivers and lack of sound referral system.

Conclusion and recommendation: The study recommends that the district health team needs to support health workers to be more conversant with the IMNCI approach. Also there should be a well-organized mechanism to ensure training coverage is increased, augmented with supportive supervision and sufficient distribution of all essential requirements.