Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Resilience and Associated Factors in Public Health Facilities of Benishangul Gumuz Region, North West Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Healthcare Supply chain resilience has become the main target of the health sector due to the increasing number of supply chain disruptions and their unintended consequences on healthcare delivery service operations. Therefore, resilient health care is important to optimizing the supply chain, enhancing collaboration, improving sustainability, improving risk management, improving visibility and control of inventory management, reducing stockouts, and improving customer service. Method: Cross-sectional study was conducted using a mixed quantitative and qualitative method in public health facilities and health offices of the Benishangul-Gumuz regional state between May and June 2024. A total of 201 staff in the 25 health facilities, regional health bureau, 3 zonal health offices, and 19 woreda health offices in the Benishangul-Gumuz region were included in the study. Analysis was conducted using SPSS version 25. Multinomial logistic regression was conducted to compute the power of the correlation between the independent variables and dependent variables. A multi- collinearity test was tested by examining tolerance and the variance inflation factor. The analyzed quantitative data was presented using frequency, and percentage tables. The qualitative data were collected through interviews with 17 key informants, and inductive thematic analysis was employed, and data were presented using texts. Result: This study assessed pharmaceutical supply chain resilience in public health facilities, revealing poor performance across robustness, rapidity, resourcefulness, and redundancy (mean = 2.56). Key influencing factors were weak disaster management structure (p=0.002), Standard Operating Procedure (0.032), lack of contingency (p=0.001), Financial Management (0.024), budget planning, Monitoring & Evaluation (0.040 (p=0.001), political instability (p=0.000), and Security (0.031). Qualitative findings highlight that poor planning, financial gaps, weak infrastructure, and poor coordination critically undermine pharmaceutical supply chain resilience. Conclusion: Pharmaceutical supply chain resilience in public health facilities is generally weak, with average scores around 2.56. Robustness and rapidity were the most underperforming areas, while resourcefulness showed moderate strength and redundancy remained low. Key factors disaster management structures, contingency planning, and financial stability were strongly linked to better resilience pharmaceutical supply chain management system at health facilities