Compliance With Infection Prevention And Control Measures Among Community Pharmacy Staff In Ga East District, Greater Accra, Ghana

Abstract

The fight against the spread of infection has had pharmacy staff at the forefront facilitating measures to detect and control disease spread and transmission through their interaction with patients. The pharmacy therefore must have in place and practice appropriate infection prevention and control to prevent and limit exposure to infection among staff and within the healthcare setting. The main objective of the study was to assess compliance with infection prevention and control measures among community pharmacists in the Ga East District of Greater Accra. A cross sectional design using questionnaires was used in this. The response to this questionnaire was validated with an observation guide used by mystery clients. The population of the study consisted of retail pharmacy staff in the Ga East district. A list of pharmacies in the area was obtained from the Pharmacy Council and the study had a sample size of 171. The data was analyzed using STATA v.16. Univariable and multivariable analysis were performed as well as chi squared test of independence. The result of the study indicates that knowledge on IPC among pharmacy staff in the Ga East district was good. 86.6% of participants had adequate knowledge and 8.8% had excellent knowledge. Compliance to infection prevention measures was also high (81%). Factors that affected the compliance was found from the study to be availability of personal protective equipment and the ability to ensure social distance. From the results of this study, pharmacy staff compliance to IPC is high. This notwithstanding, community pharmacies should be designed to accommodate social distancing measures to help limit the spread of infections. Also pharmacy management should provide the needed IPC resources for health workers to practice according to IPC policy guidelines. Again, studies should be done into IPC and HCAIs in the community pharmacy setting in Ghana to provide data since community pharmacies are one of the most patronized healthcare facility.