Assessing the Quality of Care for Pneumonia in Integrated Community Case Management

This is a Cross-Sectional Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

Pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of mortality in children under five worldwide. Community-level interventions, such as integrated community case management, have great potential to reduce the burden of pneumonia, as well as other diseases, especially in remote populations. However, there are still questions as to whether community health workers (CHW) are able to accurately assess symptoms of pneumonia and prescribe appropriate treatment.

This research addresses limitations of previous studies using innovative methodology to assess the accuracy of respiratory rate measurement by CHWs and provides new evidence on the quality of care given for children with symptoms of pneumonia. It is one of few that assesses CHW performance in their usual setting, with independent re-examination by experts, following a considerable period of time post-training of CHWs.

This research is supported by the Department for International Development’s COMDIS–HSD Programme which is led by the University of Leeds

Citation

Chomba Sinyangwe,Kirstie Graham, Sarala Nicholas, Rebecca King, Samuel Mukupa, Karin Källander, Helen Counihan, Mark Montague, James Tibenderana, Prudence Hamade. Assessing the Quality of Care for Pneumonia in Integrated Community Case Management: A Cross-Sectional Mixed Methods Study : Public Library of Science (PLOS) One. 2016; 11(3): doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152204

Assessing the Quality of Care for Pneumonia in Integrated Community Case Management: A Cross-Sectional Mixed Methods Study

Published 24 March 2016