Abstract:
Background: -Good data quality from all relevant sources at district level play a major role to strengthen health system including health services, workforce, supplies, financing, and governance. However, evidences show that data quality is poor in Ethiopia especially at lower levels of the health care facility and it remains as a major challenge.
Objective: The objective of this study was to assess data quality and associated factors of the routine health information system at public Health Centers of East Gojjam Zone.
Method: A facility based cross sectional study was conducted from March 01-21/2020 among a total of 21 health centers and 350 health professionals. Data was collected by health professionals who were experienced and had training on HIS tasks after the tools were pretested. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 23. A multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to identify associated factors. Variables with p-value of less than 0.25 entered into multi-variable analysis. Then p-value of less than 0.05 at 95% CI was taken as significant.
Result: - A total of 336 health professionals were participated in the study with response rate of 96%.Completeness, timeliness and accuracy were 86.4 %, 85.7%, and 76.2% respectively. The overall data quality was 82.76%. Conducting accuracy test [AOR = 2.217, 95% CI: 1.122, 4.378], presence of standard indicators with their definition [AOR =2.154, 95% CI: 1.036, 4.477], Data management support [AOR = 2.013, 95% CI: 1.045, 3.877], get regular feedback based on evidence [AOR = 0.397, 95% CI: 0.185, 0.853] and training [AOR =0.469, 95% CI: 0.244, 0.904]
were significantly associated factors with data quality.
Conclusion:-In this study, the overall data quality of East Gojjam zone public health centers was 82.7%. Training, strengthening data management support, avail standard indicators and regular feedback at health facilities are highly recommended. In addition continuous testing of data accuracy should to be provided to health care providers.
Key words: Data quality, RHIS, Health professional workers, East Gojjam zone.