scholarly journals Evaluating the impact of community health volunteer home visits on child diarrhea and fever in the Volta Region, Ghana: A cluster-randomized controlled trial

PLoS Medicine ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e1002830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeunji Ma ◽  
Christopher R. Sudfeld ◽  
Heunghee Kim ◽  
Jaeeun Lee ◽  
Yinseo Cho ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
Dorien Vanden Bossche ◽  
Susan Lagaert ◽  
Sara Willems ◽  
Peter Decat

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, many primary care professionals were overburdened and experienced difficulties reaching vulnerable patients and meeting the increased need for psychosocial support. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) tested whether a primary healthcare (PHC) based community health worker (CHW) intervention could tackle psychosocial suffering due to physical distancing measures in patients with limited social networks. Methods: CHWs provided 8 weeks of tailored psychosocial support to the intervention group. Control group patients received ‘care as usual’. The impact on feelings of emotional support, social isolation, social participation, anxiety and fear of COVID-19 were measured longitudinally using a face-to-face survey to determine their mean change from baseline. Self-rated change in psychosocial health at 8 weeks was determined. Results: We failed to find a significant effect of the intervention on the prespecified psychosocial health measures. However, the intervention did lead to significant improvement in self-rated change in psychosocial health. Conclusions: This study confirms partially the existing evidence on the effectiveness of CHW interventions as a strategy to address mental health in PHC in a COVID context. Further research is needed to elaborate the implementation of CHWs in PHC to reach vulnerable populations during and after health crises.


BMC Nursing ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga L. Cortés ◽  
Mauricio Herrera-Galindo ◽  
Juan Carlos Villar ◽  
Yudi A. Rojas ◽  
María del Pilar Paipa ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Despite being considered preventable, ulcers due to pressure affect between 30 and 50% of patients at high and very high risk and susceptibility, especially those hospitalized under critical care. Despite a lack of evidence over the efficacy in prevention against ulcers due to pressure, hourly repositioning in critical care as an intervention is used with more or less frequency to alleviate pressure on patients’ tissues. This brings up the objective of our study, which is to evaluate the efficacy in prevention of ulcers due to pressure acquired during hospitalization, specifically regarding two frequency levels of repositioning or manual posture switching in adults hospitalized in different intensive care units in different Colombian hospitals. Methods A nurse-applied cluster randomized controlled trial of parallel groups (two branches), in which 22 eligible ICUs (each consisting of 150 patients), will be randomized to a high-frequency level repositioning intervention or to a conventional care (control group). Patients will be followed until their exit from each cluster. The primary result of this study is originated by regarding pressure ulcers using clusters (number of first ulcers per patient, at the early stage of progression, first one acquired after admission for 1000 days). The secondary results include evaluating the risk index on the patients’ level (Hazard ratio, 95% IC) and a description of repositioning complications. Two interim analyses will be performed through the course of this study. A statistical difference between the groups < 0.05 in the main outcome, the progression of ulcers due to pressure (best or worst outcome in the experimental group), will determine whether the study should be put to a halt/determine the termination of the study. Conclusion This study is innovative in its use of clusters to advance knowledge of the impact of repositioning as a prevention strategy against the appearance of ulcers caused by pressure in critical care patients. The resulting recommendations of this study can be used for future clinical practice guidelines in prevention and safety for patients at risk. Trial registration PENFUP phase-2 was Registered in Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04604665) in October 2020.


Author(s):  
Dorien Vanden Bossche ◽  
Susan Lagaert ◽  
Sara Willems ◽  
Peter Decat

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic some family physicians were overburdened and experienced difficulties reaching vulnerable patients and meeting the increased need for psycho-social support. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) tested whether a primary healthcare (PHC) based community health worker (CHW) intervention could tackle psychosocial suffering due to physical distancing measures in patients with limited social networks. Methods: CHWs provided 8 weeks of tailored psychosocial support to the intervention group. Control group patients received &lsquo;care as usual&rsquo;. The impact on feelings of emotional support, social isolation, social participation, anxiety and fear of COVID-19 were measured longitudinally using a face-to-face survey to determine their mean change from baseline. Self-rated change in psychosocial health at 8 weeks was determined. Results: We failed to find a significant effect of the intervention on the prespecified psychosocial health measures. However, the intervention did lead to significant improvement in self-rated change in psychosocial health. Conclusions: This study confirms partially the existing evidence on the effectiveness of CHW in-terventions as a strategy to address mental health in PHC in a COVID context. Further research is needed to elaborate the implementation of CHWs in PHC to reach vulnerable populations during and after health crises.


Author(s):  
Kevin Petersen ◽  
Alejandro Mouro ◽  
Donald Papy ◽  
Noel Castillo ◽  
Barak Ariel

Abstract Objectives To assess the effects of BWCs on prosecutorial and court-related charge outcomes across multiple crime types, including domestic violence charges, crimes committed against police officers, and drug/alcohol charges. Methods A cluster-randomized controlled trial with 22 spatiotemporal police units assigned to BWCs and 17 assigned to control conditions. Data from the State Attorney’s Office were used to track convictions, adjudication withheld dispositions, and declined prosecutions for both experimental and control charges. A series of multilevel logistic and negative binomial regression models were used to estimate the effect of BWC footage on charge outcomes. Outcomes BWCs led to a significantly higher proportion of crimes against police officers resulting in convictions or adjudication withheld outcomes, and a significantly higher proportion of domestic violence charges resulting in convictions alone, compared to control charges. However, after the clustering effect was taken into account, only the effect of BWCs on crimes against police officers remained statistically significant. Conclusion These early results suggest that BWCs have significant evidentiary value that varies by crime type. BWCs may be best suited to capture evidence of crimes committed against police officers and potentially in domestic violence offenses as well.


Author(s):  
Christine Marie George ◽  
Shirajum Monira ◽  
Fatema Zohura ◽  
Elizabeth D Thomas ◽  
M Tasdik Hasan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The Cholera Hospital-Based Intervention for 7 Days (CHoBI7) mobile health (mHealth) program was a cluster-randomized controlled trial of diarrhea patient households conducted in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Methods Patients were block-randomized to 3 arms: standard message on oral rehydration solution use; health facility delivery of CHoBI7 plus mHealth (no home visits); and health facility delivery of CHoBI7 plus 2 home visits and mHealth. The primary outcome was reported diarrhea in the past 2 weeks collected monthly for 12 months. The secondary outcomes were stunting, underweight, and wasting at a 12-month follow-up. Analysis was intention-to-treat. Results Between 4 December 2016 and 26 April 2018, 2626 participants in 769 households were randomly allocated to 3 arms: 849 participants to the standard message arm, 886 to mHealth with no home visits arm, and 891 to the mHealth with 2 home visits. Children &lt;5 years had significantly lower 12-month diarrhea prevalence in both the mHealth with 2 home visits arm (prevalence ratio [PR]: 0.73 [95% confidence interval {CI}, .61–.87]) and the mHealth with no home visits arm (PR: 0.82 [95% CI, .69–.97]). Children &lt;2 years were significantly less likely to be stunted in both the mHealth with 2 home visits arm (33% vs 45%; odds ratio [OR]: 0.55 [95% CI, .31–.97]) and the mHealth with no home visits arm (32% vs 45%; OR: 0.54 [95% CI, .31–.96]) compared with children in the standard message arm. Conclusions The CHoBI7 mHealth program lowered pediatric diarrhea and stunting among diarrhea patient households. Clinical Trials Registration NCT04008134.


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