Title : Assessment of health workers knowledge and practiceson vaccines storage and cold chain management in the Techiman Municipality.
Abstract:
Background: The contribution of immunization to humanity is invaluable, especially to children. This makes assessment of the vaccine cold chain system of any immunization programme crucial to determine its strengths and weaknesses at all levels. The World Health Organization and Ghana Health Service have put strategies in place to ensure that, standard procedures are strictly followed by health workers involved in vaccination to ensure quality handling, storage transportation and administration of various vaccines. Adequate knowledge of staff on vaccines storage is required to avert significant costs of wasted vaccines and prevent loss of credibility to recipients who must be revaccinated due to a storage and handling errors.
Aim/Objective: The study sought to assess health workers’ knowledge and practices on vaccines storage and cold chain management in the Techiman Municipality.
Method: A descriptive cross- sectional study was conducted in the Techiman Municipality using a structured questionnaire and checklist to collect data from respondents. Interviewer administered technique was employed to collect data from the respondents. EpiData 5.0 software was used to enter the collected data and then exported to Stata 15.0 for analysis. Descriptive analysis was done and results presented in tables, pie charts and simple graph.
Findings: Out of the 52 healthcare workers who participated in the study, 82.7 % of them had good knowledge on vaccine cold chain management and 80.8% engaged in
