Utilisation of Laboratory Test Results for Patient Management by Clinicians at Two Large Referral Hospitals in Zambia

摘要

Background: Medical laboratory diagnosis is a critical component of patient management in the healthcare setup. Despite the availability of laboratory tests, clinicians may not utilise them to make clinical decisions. We investigated utilsation of laboratory tests for patient management among clinicians at Ndola Teaching Hospital (NTH) and Arthur Davison Children's Hospital (ADCH), two large referral hospitals in the Copperbelt Province, Ndola, Zambia. Method: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study among clinicians. The study deployed self-administered questionnaires to evaluate clinicians' utilisation, querying and confidence in laboratory results. Additional data on demographics and possible laboratory improvements were also obtained. Data were entered in Microsoft excel and exported to SPSS version 16 for statistical analysis. Results: Of the 80 clinicians interviewed, 96.2% (77) reported using laboratory tests and their results in patient management. 77.5% (62) of the clinicians indicated they always used laboratory results to influence their patient management decisions. Of the selected laboratory tests, clinicians were more confident in using haemoglobin test results (91.2%). There was no statistically significant association between the clinicians' gender or qualification and use of test results in patient management. Conclusion: Our findings show that despite the majority querying laboratory results, most of the clinicians use laboratory results for patient management. There is need for interactions between the laboratory and clinical area to assure clinician's confidence in laboratory results.