scholarly journals PROTOCOL: Effectiveness of interventions to manage acute malnutrition in children under five years of age in low‐ and middle‐income countries: a systematic review

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Jai K Das ◽  
Rehana A Salam ◽  
Marwah Saeed ◽  
Hasana Bilal ◽  
Zulfiqar A Bhutta
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (S1) ◽  
pp. 114-114
Author(s):  
Patrick Okwen ◽  
Raphael Cheabum ◽  
Etienne Che ◽  
Joy Ngwemsi Mbunu ◽  
Miriam Nkangu

Introduction:Malaria is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in children under five in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Management of malaria in children under five years of age is challenging. One challenge faced by clinical practice in LMICs is lack of evidence to guide practice. This challenge is further compounded by different training backgrounds of team members. In the management of malaria in Cameroon, conflicts usually arise between clinicians, lab technicians and pharmacists resulting in over diagnosis and treatment of malaria. The patient's view is usually not considered. This leads to over diagnosis and over prescriptions for malaria in children under five years of age.Methods:We used the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) approach of getting research into practice to organize stakeholder meetings, assess existing evidence in malaria care, develop evidence criteria for management based on levels of evidence, assess the gamut of care for malaria, provide feedback to clinicians and re-assess practice. We used the JBI practical application of clinical evidence system (PACES) and getting research into practice (GRiP) evidence implementation tools in the process to facilitate teamwork, collaboration on evidence and provide feedback.Results:A collaborative approach to assessments and feedback including all healthcare stakeholders significantly improved workplace culture of evidence-based care and staff-to-staff relationships as well as staff-to-patient relationships. Over a period of twelve months, we reported eighty-four percent fewer conflicts between staff and ninety-eight percent fewer conflicts between staff and patients. For malaria management, overall criteria showed a thirty-one percent improvement in compliance with best practice recommendations with evidence levels of Grade 1.Conclusions:The project demonstrated that local leadership and evidence-based care can significantly improve practice in resource limited settings.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A Lewnard ◽  
Elizabeth T Rogawski McQuade ◽  
James A Platts-Mills ◽  
Karen L Kotloff ◽  
Ramanan Laxminarayan

Background: Diarrhea is a leading cause of antibiotic consumption among children in low- and middle-income countries. While vaccines may prevent diarrhea infections for which children often receive antibiotics, the contribution of individual enteropathogens to antibiotic use is minimally understood. We used data from the Global Enteric Multicenter Study (GEMS) to estimate pathogen-specific incidence of antibiotic-treated diarrhea among children under five years old residing in six countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia before rotavirus vaccine implementation. Methods and findings: GEMS was an age-stratified, individually-matched case-control study. Stool specimens were obtained from children presenting to sentinel health clinics with newly-onset, acute diarrhea (including moderate-to-severe and less-severe diarrhea) as well as matched community controls without diarrhea. We used data from conventional and quantitative molecular diagnostic assays applied to stool specimens to estimate the proportion of antibiotic-treated diarrhea cases attributable to each pathogen. Antibiotics were administered or prescribed to 9,606 of 12,109 moderate-to-severe cases and 1,844 of 3,174 less-severe cases. Across all sites, incidence rates of clinically-attended, antibiotic-treated diarrhea were 12.2 (95% confidence interval: 9.0-17.8), 10.2 (7.4-13.9) and 1.9 (1.3-3.0) episodes per 100 child-years at risk at ages 6 weeks to 11 months, 12-23 months, and 24-59 months, respectively. Based on the recommendation for antibiotic treatment to be reserved for cases with dysentery, we estimated a ratio of 12.6 (8.6-20.8) inappropriately-treated diarrhea cases for each appropriately-treated case. Rotavirus, adenovirus serotypes 40/41, Shigella, sapovirus, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, and Cryptosporidium were the leading antibiotic-treated diarrhea etiologies. Rotavirus caused 29.2% (24.5-35.2%) of antibiotic-treated cases, including the largest share in both the first and second years of life. Shigella caused 14.9% (11.4-18.9%) of antibiotic-treated cases, and was the leading etiology at ages 24-59 months. Conclusions: Our findings should inform the prioritization of vaccines with the greatest potential to reduce antibiotic exposure among children.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeniyi Francis Fagbamigbe ◽  
Ngianga- Bakwin Kandala ◽  
Olalekan Uthman

Abstract Background Low- and Middle-income countries (LMIC) are still plagued with the burden of severe acute malnutrition (SAM). While studies have identified factors that influence SAM, efforts have not been made to decompose the educational inequalities across the individual, neighbourhood and national levels in LMIC. This study aims to decompose educational-related inequalities in the prevalence of SAM across LMIC.Methods We pooled successive secondary data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted between 2010 and 2018 in 51 LMIC. We analysed data of 532,680 under-five children nested within 55,823 neighbourhoods. Severe acute malnutrition was the outcome variable while the literacy status of mothers (literate vs illiterate) was the main exposure variable. The explanatory variables cut across the individual-, household and neighbourhood-level factors of the mothers-children pair. Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method was used to analyse the educational gap in the factors associated with SAM.Results Mothers with no formal education ranged from 0.1% in Armenia and Kyrgyz to as much as 86.1% in Niger. The overall prevalence of SAM in the group of children whose mothers had no education was 5.8% compared with 4.2% among those whose mothers were educated. Thirteen countries had statistically significant pro-illiterate inequality (i.e. SAM concentrated among uneducated mothers) while none of the countries showed statistically significant pro-literate inequality. There were variations in the important factors responsible for the educational inequalities across the countries. On average, neighbourhood socioeconomic status disadvantage, location of residence were the most important factors in most countries. Other contributors to the explanation of educational inequalities are birth weight, maternal age and toilet type.Conclusions We identified that SAM is prevalent in most LMIC with wide educational inequalities. The occurrence of SAM was explained by the individual, household and community-level factor. A potential strategy to reduce the burden of SAM to reduce educational inequalities among mothers in the low- and middle-income countries through the promotion of women education.


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