Leveraging on the 2017/2018 measles vaccination campaign to improve health workers knowledge and practice on injection safety: A case study of north-central states, Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: Globally, knowledge of health workers has been documented to be key in effective immunisation service delivery. The parenteral route of drug administration is a vital healthcare procedure used in the administration of medicines using needle and syringe. Despite the importance of this procedure, improper handling of the device has resulted in an unsafe practice among health workers who attend to patients receiving injectable medications. A phased measles vaccination campaign (MVC) was conducted in 2017/2018 with a key objectives of training health workers on injection safety. This paper examines the association between improvement on knowledge of health workers through improved training curriculum and their practice on injection safety.

Methods: We reviewed information on handling and administration of the measles vaccine from the open data kit (ODK) platform finalised microplans and the training curriculum used during the 2015/2016 and 2017/2018 MVC. We analysed our results using paired t-test analysis, SPSS and Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and reported results in frequencies and proportions using charts and tables.

Results: Our findings revealed more health workers were trained during the 2017/2018 MVC as compared to 2015/2016 MVC. The curriculum adopted during the 2017/2018 MVC showed that multiple techniques were adopted during training compared to only class lectures used during the 2015/2016 MVC. A paired t-test analysis comparing the impact of training on the knowledge of the health workers during 2015/2016 and 2017/2018 MVC revealed significant improvement across five states during the 2017/2018 MVC, with mean ranging from 6.5% in the FCT to 23.7% in Nassarawa state.

Conclusion: The review of training curriculum and use of multiple training styles during the 2017/2018 MVC improved the knowledge of health workers. Immunisation programmes will benefit from adopting the training curriculum to meet the specific needs of the health workers.

Keywords: Health Care workers; Immunization; Injection safety; Knowledge; Vaccination campaign.