Abstract:

Introduction: Medical incident reporting is a key tool for improving patient safety in healthcare, hence improved quality of care. The better the knowledge, attitude and practice of this concept, the better the quality of care. The perceived knowledge, attitude and practice are still low in many Uganda healthcare facilities. Many of the healthcare providers have, therefore, limited their scope to maternal death audit and reporting or perinatal death reporting and to a greater extent Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI). This problem of perceived low knowledge, attitude and practice of incident reporting is coupled with the poor institutional culture to persistently and inadequate support healthcare professionals to report incidents. Medical incident reporting is, therefore, the single most powerful tool for developing and maintaining an awareness of risks in healthcare practice, hence a cornerstone to improved patient safety and improved quality of service delivery.

Objectives: The study objectives were as follow; to assess the level of knowledge about medical incident reporting among healthcare professionals, by April, 2016 and determine their attitude towards medical incident reporting. The researcher also set out to ascertain the practice and the extent to which medical incident reporting is practiced in Midigo Health Centre IV, as well as, establishing the factors affecting medical incident reporting in the said healthcare facility.

Methods: The study was a cross sectional study of knowledge, attitude and practice of medical incident reporting among Healthcare Professionals in Midigo health centre IV. It was both qualitative and quantitative; with a sample of 44healthcare professionals interviewed using structured questionnaires. The questionnaire was pre-tested. Analysis of result was done using computer packages called Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Microsoft excel. Ethical considerations in research were observed.

Results: The cadre of the respondents were; Medical officers – 4.5%, Clinical officers – 6.8%, Nurses – 43.2%, Midwives – 11.4%, Theatre staffs – 9.1%, Laboratory staffs – 6.8% and other staffs – 18.2%. The response rate was 100%. The level of knowledge about medical incident reporting among healthcare professionals in Midigo HC IV was at 84.1%, by April 2016. Much as there was no statistical significance between cadre of staffs and extent of knowledge, p-value >0.39, the only cadres that had excellent knowledge on medical incident reporting were nurses (75%) and clinical officers (25%). The rest of the staffs either had average knowledge or fair knowledge or no knowledge at all. The healthcare professionals had strong positive attitude towards medical incident reporting and this was at 97.7%. By April, 2016, the practice of medical incident reporting was at 72.6% with the majority of these respondents (up to 50%), having participated in reporting three times or more for the last 5years. The major factors that facilitated the respondents to report were; Strong positive feeling to participate and improve patient safety and respondents were knowledgeable (educated) about medical incident reporting. Other minor factors like ability of respondents to get feedback on reported incidents and strong institutional culture of reporting did not make strong contribution towards the practice of reporting. However, the major barriers were; respondents didn’t know where and how to report, coupled with weak institutional culture of reporting incidents. Surprisingly, fear of consequence of reporting did not in any way hinder any respondent from reporting. In other words, it was not a reason for them not to participate in medical incident reporting.

Conclusion: Medical incident reporting still remains a key tool in improving patient safety. The greater the practice of reporting, the better; as evident by the strong positive feeling towards medical incident reporting, in this research finding. Educating professionals on incident reporting and strong positive individual feeling to improve safety have remained the major factors facilitating medical incident reporting. Likewise, lack of knowledge on where and how to report, coupled with weak institutional culture of reporting have remained the major barriers to practicing medical incident reporting.

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