Routine Health Information System Data Quality and Associated Factors in Selected Public Health Facilities of Jigjiga Woreda, Somali Regional State’s, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Health data quality are limited within the health sectors of low- and middle- income countries (LMICs). Although public health decision-making is mainly dependent on the timely availability of quality data, the quality of health data is not satisfactory in some countries, including in the Somali Regional State. Therefore, this baseline assessment was aimed at assessing the level of data quality and its determinants in the public health sector of the Somali Regional State, Ethiopia.
Methods: A baseline assessment was conducted as part of an implementation research project. The study was conducted in three selected public health facilities of the Jigjiga Woreda, including the Woreda Health Office and the Somali Regional Health Bureau. A total of 179 health care workers participated in the survey. Interviewer guided self-administered, record review, and observation data collection techniques were used for data collection. Data was analyzed using descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate logistic models to identify predictors of data quality. A P-value of 0.05 was used as the statistical significance cut-off point.
Results: The overall data accuracy and content completeness in the studied facilities was 88.12% and 75.75%, respectively. Data accuracy was 92.2% in the Karamara Hospital, 83.1% in Jigjiga Health Center, and 79.8% in the Ayardaga Health Center. Content completeness was 81.6% in the Karamara Hospital, 81.2% in the Jigjiga Health Center, and 69.7% in the Ayardaga health center. For the studied variables, the data recording value given by their immediate supervisors was a strong predictor of data accuracy in the study setting. The odds of those who felt that data recording was not valued by supervisors had 0.26 times poorer data accuracy than their counterparts (AOR: 0.26, 95%CI: 0.10, 0.66).
Conclusion: Both the accuracy and completeness of health data in Eastern Ethiopia were inadequate. As a result, health work force immediate supervisors and Performance Monitoring Teams (PMT) should undertake regular and ongoing supervision and provide timely feedback for corrective action. In addition, specialized training in data recording and documentation would be beneficial in bridging the gap between workers' skill.