Assessment on Storage Conditions of Medical Laboratory Commodities and KAP of Store Managers at Government Hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Background Medical laboratory commodity management system especially storage system of laboratory supplies is a challenge for health professionals. Lacks of proper storage condition for laboratory commodities causes damaging commodities and stock out of essential supplies. The need of proper store management has gained a great attention for better laboratory service.

Methods A Cross sectional study was conducted to assess storage conditions of commodities in eleven hospital medical stores in Addis Ababa from 1 January 2014 to 1 February 2014. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data was entered to EPI INFO version 3.1statistical software and analyzed with SPSS version 20 statistical analysis software. Graphs and tables were used to present the result.

Results Data obtained from eleven governmental hospitals was analyzed. From these more than 45% of hospitals stores served for more than 12 years without amendments. Around 18% of hospital stores didn’t have adequate protection from sunlight whereas more than 90% didn’t have frozen storage of either -20oC or -70oC. But all of the stores had cold storage of 2-8oC. Only 36.36% of the hospital stores have separate flammable chemicals and 54.45% of hospital stores have separate hazardous chemicals. All store managers in this study are pharmacist and most of them are degree holders.

Conclusion The storage conditions of majority of the hospitals have problems. Lack of adequate space and infrastructures to store medical laboratory commodities were challenges in half of the facilities. Adequate and regular training should be given to the responsible personnel for better storage of medical laboratory commodities.