Knowledge, attitude, and practice of basic hospital management principles among medical doctors in Lokoja, Nigeria

Background: Good management skills are required by medical doctors to offer optimal service to clients (patients). Though doctors are often managers, basic hospital management principles are lacking in the training curriculum, and may affect how they organize multi-disciplinary teams or units in synergizing healthcare delivery. Aims: This study sought to determine the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice of management principles among private and public medical doctors in Lokoja. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study of 160 medical doctors using a pretested 23-item closed-ended questionnaire. Descriptive and bivariate analyses (using the Chi-squared, Pearson′s correlations and Students′ t-tests) were performed to compare categorical and continuous outcomes respectively. Results: A total of 70.9% of respondents were found to have a high knowledge of basic management principles, 80.6% had a positive attitude toward management principles while only 35.6% of respondents actually used formal management principles in their administrative work. Public sector doctors had significantly better knowledge (P < 0.001), positive attitudes (P < 0.003), and higher level of practice (P < 0.004) compared to private sector doctors. There was a positive linear relationship among knowledge and attitude (R = 0.47), knowledge and practice (R = 0.33), and attitude and practice (R = 0.38). Conclusion: Public sector doctors had higher knowledge and better attitudes toward management principles compared to private sector colleagues. Low levels of practice of basic management principles were seen in both groups. This study sets the groundwork for future research.