Health professionals’ knowledge and attitude of tuberculosis infection control in Mizan Tepi University Teaching Hospital, Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Health professionals are the front-line agents to realize tuberculosis (TB) Infection Control (TBIC) in health facilities and in turn to achieve the targets of the End TB strategy. Despite this, evidence on their knowledge and attitude regarding TBIC is inadequate. As a result, this study aimed to investigate the knowledge and attitude of health professionals regarding TBIC, and associated factors in Mizan Tepi University Teaching hospital. METHODS: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from September 1 to 30, 2019 by including eligible health professionals in the hospital. Knowledge and attitude of TBIC were the outcome variables. We have used 70% as a cut-off to categorize the knowledge and attitude statuses. Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the outcome variables. The odds ratio with its respective 95% confidence interval was used to measure the strength of association. The final significance was declared at a p-value of<0.05. RESULTS: The study found that 70.2% (95%CI: 63.8%, 76.6%) and 78.3% (95% CI: 72.3%, 84%) of the respondents had good knowledge and positive attitude regarding TBIC respectively. The current profession, job location, and history of TBIC training were significantly associated with the respondents’ knowledge. Whereas, the knowledge status of the respondents was the only significant predictor of the attitude. CONCLUSION: Although our study participants had satisfactory knowledge and attitude regarding TBIC to some extent, it needs due attention to achieve the target of End TB strategy. Thus, updating the health professionals through different skill-based TBIC training should be considered.