Abstract:
Back ground: Millions of people do not have access to health commodity particularly those essential
drugs. Mortality figures across developing regions reflect a huge burden of illness that can be
substantially reduced if carefully selected; pharmaceuticals are available and appropriately used. Health
commodity stock out is common in health facilities, which result in service interruption and eventually
leads to missing of the life of an individual. Objective: objective of the study is to find out contributing
factors for health commodity stock out at health facilities in Bahir Dar city. Methods: The study was done
using quantitative methods. A total of 110 questionnaire was distributed and 92(83. 6 %) were collected
back and used for the analysis. Besides 11 health centers and six hospitals were visited and all the
required information were included in the study. Result: - The study shows that Health Commodity stock
out is found to be regular situation at health facility with the overall mean and standard deviation of
(M=4.197, SD= 0.266). Essential health commodity stock out is more regularly observed followed by
vital and non-essential. Health commodity stock out has negative, significant and weak correlation with
practice of incentives and health commodity logistics cycle at health facility evidenced by P value less
than 0.05. Regression analysis shows that adjusted R
2
value of 0.164 which implies that 16.4 % changes
in stock out of health commodity could be attributed to changes in practicing incentives, logistics cycle
and ICT at 95 % confidence interval and the remaining 83.6 % is unexplained by the predictors
included in the model. Conclusion: Health commodity stock out is regular situation at health facility
hence, proper practice of Incentives for health Commodity Inventory management staff and Health
commodity Logistics Cycle at health facility could have a possibility to improve availability.
Recommendation: All stake holders; including health professional associations, Drug expert’s
suppliers, health facility directors & financial managers, supply chain managers and policymakers
should work hand in hand with commitment in order to minimize stock out at health facility. Suggestions:
Health commodity availability is a key factor to provide health service at health facility so further studies
has to be conducted in related topics to identify contributing factors so as to minimize health commodity
stock out at health facility and intervene accordingly.