Awareness and Practice of Health Care Providers towards Communicable Disease Surveillance in Assuit University Hospitals - Egypt

Introduction: Communicable disease control is announced as one of the most important health issues internationally. Poor disease surveillance is a main cause for increased mortality and morbidity of communicable diseases.The main purpose of public health surveillance is to provide actionable health information to public health staff, governmental leaders and the public. Lack of knowledge, poor attitude and practice are identifiable causes of non-compliance to surveillance system requirements among health care providers. Objective: This study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of Assuit university health care providers regarding the reporting of communicable diseases. Method: Across sectional study was conducted on 347 physician and 73 head-nurses at Assuit University Hospitals. Interview questionnaire covering personal and work data, knowledge, attitude and practice was used. Results: only 40% of participants have knowledge about the presence of communicable disease surveillance system and unit. Regarding knowledge about the functions of the surveillance; the most known functions were: application of collected data for disease prevention and control and dissemination to allow action. Small percentage of participants didn’t know any function of the system. Conclusion: Less than a quarter of the participants have a good knowledge of the surveillance of communicable diseases. Most (three quarters) of the participants have a positive attitude about communicable diseases surveillance. Head nurses have slightly more adequate practice than physicians. The main reasons for non-reporting were: lack of knowledge about how or to whom to report or which diseases to report and time constraint.