Factors Influencing the Quality of Human Immune Viruses Data In Routine Health Information System In Njombe District Council, Tanzania

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction Reliable and accurate HIV/AIDS data is essential for monitoring, evaluation and improvement of HIV/AIDS services delivery. As we try to fight against HIV/AIDS in the country, the quality of HIV/AIDS data remains a challenge. Objective This study was assessing factors influencing the quality of HIV/AIDS Data in Routine Health Information System in Njombe District Council, Tanzania.

Methods A descriptive cross sectional study employing purposive sampling (quota) was used to select 42 Health Care Workers (HCWs) and other people who directly work on HIV/AIDS data within the district to identify factors influencing the quality of HIV/AIDS data. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the characteristics of the respondents involved. The Frequency distribution tables were used to show distribution of both the outcome and explanatory variables. Data quality were assessed by using Likert scale where, the agreed response were coded as 1 and disagree response were coded as 0. The number of questions constituting each quality parameter were added for each respondents. For each questions the responses coded 1 were added. The total number of agreed response were divided by the number of questions constituting each quality parameter times 100 percent in order to get the average quality parameter percent for all 42 respondents and for all questions constituting each quality parameter precision. Results This study found an overall average integrity of 55.64%, an overall average reliability of 71.4%, an overall average completeness of 41.4%, an overall average precision of 11.9%, an overall average timeliness of 46.8% and overall average validity 34.1%. The study also found weakness in the institution support towards improvement of HIV/AIDS data at Njombe and weaknesses also were found in other general factors hypothesized to impact HIV/AIDS data. Conclusion Therefore in order to improve accuracy of HIV/AIDS data the problem of integrity, completeness, precision, timeliness and validity need to be addressed by involving all key stakeholders in HIV/AIDS data in Njombe District Council.