Assessment of Patient-care and Facility-specific Indicators in Government-owned Secondary Healthcare Facilities in Ogun State, Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51412/psnnjp.2026.015Keywords:
secondary healthcare facilities, rational drug use, facility-specific indicators, Patient care-indicatorsAbstract
Background: Drugs are used for prevention, treatment or diagnosis of diseases. Rational drug use is imperative to achieve optimal outcome. Patient-centered treatment is crucial to achieving therapy goals and acceptable healthcare facilities ensure the right environment for practice. This study assessed Patient-care and Facility-specific indicators in Government-owned Secondary Healthcare Facilities in Ogun State.
Methods: The study was a prospective evaluation of the performance of the three selected healthcare facilities in area of patient-care and facility-specifics in accordance with the WHO/INRUD drug use indicators. Six hundred patients were interviewed comprising 200 patients per centre. The data obtained was analyzed with descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentages using SPSS version 20 with the level of significance set at < 0.05.
Results: The total number of patients interviewed at the three study centers for the patient-care indicators were six hundred (200 at each facility) and eighty three (41.5%) were males. The mean age was 43.3 ± 16.5; average consultation time was 4.3 ± 1.9 minutes while the average dispensing time was 20.4 ± 7.3 seconds. The percentages of the prescribed drugs actually dispensed and drugs adequately labeled were 98.5 ± 6.7 and 97.3 ± 15.13 respectively. The percentage availability of Essential Medicines List (EML) copy was 100 ± 0.0 and the percent key drugs in stock at the time of study was 88.3 ± 10.4.
Conclusion: This study concluded that the healthcare performance at the study centres in relation to patient-care and facility-specifics was suboptimal and less than that stipulated by the WHO. It fell short of the expected standard practice thereby confirming irrational drug use. Regular training of healthcare professionals is hereby recommended to improve healthcare outcome.
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