Abstract:
Background: The laboratory services are essential component of health services in the diagnosis
and treatment of patients. But laboratory infrastructure and test quality for all types of clinical
laboratories remain back warded in most countries in Africa. In spite of its ancient civilization,
Ethiopia today is one of the least developed countries with low development indicators. For
example, Ethiopian health care system in terms of infrastructure and personnel is about one third
of Kenya’s. So the concerned bodies should address the urgent need of strengthen laboratory
system and services in order to achieve the delivery of quality health service.
Objective: to assess the quality of laboratory service in the prospect of status of personnel,
facility and safety of the laboratory room and client satisfaction level of clients with the service.
Method: The study was conducted in Addis Ababa city starting from September to October
2013G.C. Facility based cross-sectional study design was employed on government health
centers and hospitals laboratories by interviewing the laboratory professionals and clients. The
study included all laboratory personnel working in 10 randomly selected health centers and 4
selected hospitals and 422 laboratory clients in the selected facilities. The sample was distributed
to each facility proportional to the average number of clients of the laboratory serve in a month.
Results: Ninety laboratory personnel involved in the personnel and safety assessment. Half of
the participants were female. More than half of them took laboratory quality management
training (57.8%), seventy seven (85.6%) said all laboratory work is done by authorized person,
97.8% reassured presence of personnel file. Only 45% of them realized the presence of training
plan. A total of 422 laboratory clients participated for satisfaction assessment. Two hundred forty
seven (58.5%) of them were female. The overall satisfaction level was 54.0% with maximum
and minimum satisfaction of 83.0% and 25.0% respectively. Availability of waiting area was
found to be the predictor of satisfaction. Weak attention was given for safety of clients,
personnel, community members and provision of safety materials.
Conclusion: Quality of laboratory service concerning personnel and client satisfaction is lower
than other studies conducted in different areas, wrong perception of the personnel in taking
responsibility to improve the quality of their laboratory and weak attention given for safety.
Generally low activities were done on improving quality.
