The knowledge, attitude and practices of the reporting of notifiable diseases among health workers in Yobe State, Nigeria.

Effective surveillance is the key to effective disease control in the community. In Nigeria, it is weak with duplication of data collection and multiple reporting channels. There is also lack of clarity with regards to data submission responsibilities. However, the knowledge of reporting requirements and responsibilities among health personnel has not been examined adequately as a cause of under reporting. This study was designed to assess the knowledge of health workers about disease surveillance. A cross sectional study was conducted in six randomly selected local government areas in Yobe State, North Eastern Nigeria. A total of 144 health personnel from 88 health facilities were administered a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire and a checklist by trained research assistants. The result showed that only fifty-five (38.2%) of the respondents were aware of the national disease surveillance system. Their mean score regarding immediate notifiable diseases was 0.8 +/- 1.23 SD (maximum of 10). Thirty nine (70.9%) reported to have ever reported, while 16 (29.1%) have never reported any of the notifiable conditions. Only 12 (21.8%) of the respondents claimed to have ever received feedback on the reports they forward to higher authorities and more than 92% of the health facilities lack the DSN 001 and 002 forms. Most of the respondents 47 (85.5%) that were aware of the reporting requirements listed lack of training on disease surveillance as one of the factors affecting disease reporting. This shows that lack of knowledge of reporting requirement was identified as a major factor affecting disease surveillance among the respondents. The training and retraining of health workers responsible for data generation, collection and forwarding in health facilities on disease notification, regular feedback on diseases reported and provision of forms were recommended in order to improve the disease surveillance system.