Acid Fast Bacilli Smear Microscopy Proficiency of 2012 GC Graduating Batch Students in the Field of Medical Laboratory Science in the Three Earliest Universities of Ethiopia

Abstract

Objective: To assess performance of graduating batch students in field of Medical Laboratory Science in detecting and quantifying Acid Fast Bacilli using sputum smear microscopy. Methodology: A total of 124 Medical laboratory sciences 2012 GC. Graduating batch students were evaluated by proficiency testing (PT) consisting of 5 stained slides with known grade of acid fast bacilli (AFB) from February to June 2012 in three earliest universities of Ethiopia. Results: Of 124 medical laboratory Science 2012 graduating batch students evaluated by proficiency test (PT), the mean score was 87.1% and overall PT score ranged from 40-100%.Overall there were 24(19.1%) major errors and 117 (81%) minor error. From panel slide reading, the total numbers of students that report major error are 18(14.5%) and there were a total of 80(64.5%) students that report minor error. Conclusion: From this study, the proficiency to read sputum smear by graduating batch students who have taken pre-service training (students from University-002) were better than the rest (University-001 and University-003) which hasn’t taken pre-service training yet. Students that report major errors are, 6(12.8%), 1(5.3%), 11(19.0%) for university-001, 002and 003 respectively. Thus, the study has highlights the importance of training in improving the microscopy results.