Integrated management of childhood illnesses is a strategy developed by WHO, PAHO and UNICEF with the aim of improving child health and development. The purpose of the study was to determine factors influencing implementation of IMCI among health workers at St. Francis hospital Mutolere Kisoro district. A descriptive cross-sectional study involving both quantitative and qualitative was used and purposive sampling procedure was used to select the department’s handling children and convenience sampling used to recruit 40 health workers who participated in the study.
Data was collected using pretested questionnaire and key informant guide and then analyzed using SPSS software and Microsoft excel and results presented in form of frequency tables, graphs and pie charts for easy interpretation. Findings showed that minority 6(15%) of the respondents lacked knowledge about IMCI, 24(60%) of respondents had guidelines on ward, 12(30%) consulted guidelines and 18(45%)
referred very sick children, 22(55.0%) lacked training on IMCI and 20(50%) lacked emergence drugs. Findings further revealed that 24(60%) reported availability of guidelines in their departments, 23(57%) had no CPD’S, 29(72.5%) not motivated, 24(60%) had shortages of
essential medicines and 23(57.5%) had no supervision.
From the above findings, the researcher concluded that the implementation of IMCI was influenced by health worker related factors which included majorly lack of knowledge,availability of guidelines, training on IMCI, availability of emergency drugs for IMCI and this led to referral of very sick children. The organizational factors included; availability of resources allocated to IMCI implementation program, continuous professional development, staff motivation and supervision.
Therefore, study recommended that CPDs on IMCI should be conducted and all health workers should be encouraged to attend, avail the IMCI guidelines to all the departments, support supervision of staff and motivation so as to boost their knowledge and morale to prevent child death
