Factors Affecting Documentation of Clients' Care in the Provision of ART Services by Health Workers in Lusaka Province

An explorative cross-sectional study using both qualitative and quantitative methods was conducted to describe the quality of documentation of patients ?care and determine factors affecting documentation of patients? care in the provision of ART services by health workers and other support staff in Rufunsa, Luangwa and Chongwe districts of Lusaka province in Zambia. Using multi-stage sampling method 168 participants were sampled and data was collected using a structured pre-tested questionnaire. Fisher's exact and chi-square tests were used and considered results significant at p less than 0.05. The majority of the respondents were females 51.8% and the majority of respondents (32.1%) were nurses and support staff (lay counselors, cleaners). Among those whose facilities had good quality data 99 (78.6%) had orientation in management. It was found that data management orientation was significantly associated with quality of data with the P value of 0.002. Among those facilities with good quality of data management the majority (83.3%) their staff mentioned that they had received adequate supervision, further the majority (42.9%) worked between one and two in a shift. Further, the number of staff in a given shift was significantly associated with quality of management with the P value less than 0.000. The study concludes that orientation of the health center staff in data management, number of staff in a shift that the higher the number the high the quality of documentation and frequent supervision improves the quality of patient?s care documentation. However, work overload cause stress on the health workers and frequent introduction of data collecting tools contributes to poor documentation of patients? care.