Elimination of unnecessary injection through health education on injection safety and rational prescription among primary health care workers in Katsina State, Nigeria

Background : unnecessary injection is one of the contributory factors of unsafe injection, generation of additional injection waste hazards and transmission of blood borne pathogens the situation was assessed in this study among primary health care workers in Katsina State between February and July 2012. Objectives: To determine the pattern of unnecessary injection prescription practice and to evaluate the effect of health education in improving rational injection prescription among health workers in Katsina State. Methodology: A quasi experimental design was used to study 275 primary health care workers among the study group and control groups with 222 prescription slips selected randomly on exit from consultation rooms. Self administered questionnaires and observation checklists modified from WHO tool for injection safety assessment were pretested and administered to the study participants determined through sample size calculation and systematic sampling selection. Data collected was entered and analyzed using SPSS Version 17. Results: The mean age of the workers was 38.2±8 years and 36.4±7.7 years among the study and control groups respectively. Most of the health workers practice prescription, the mean injection prescribed 49.0±38.7 pre intervention and 24.3±24.3 post intervention among the study group. Poly pharmacy with an average of 6.0 drugs pre intervention to 5.69 drugs post intervention remained among the workers. The mean injection prescribed reduced from 2.009±1.6 to 1.792±1.6 post intervention (p=0.001),most of the prescriptions issued by the study participants have significantly improved in writing full name of drugs, dose of medication, dose interval and legible hand writing (p<0.05). Use of generic name has improved to 52.3% post intervention and prescriber-patient communication also improved averagely in explaining to patient why oral drugs was better than injection and why injection was prescribed has improved to  84.4% and 89.6% post intervention significantly(p<0.05). Conclusion: Unnecessary injection can be reduced through training intervention among health workers, the practice of polypharmacy need more studies in order find a lasting solution to the problem. Keywords: Unnecessary Injection, Health Education, PHCWs.