Effect of educational outreach to nurses on tuberculosis case detection and primary care of respiratory illness: pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To develop and implement an educational outreach programme for the integrated case management of priority respiratory diseases (practical approach to lung health in South Africa; PALSA) and to evaluate its effects on respiratory care and detection of tuberculosis among adults attending primary care clinics.

Design

Pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial, with clinics as the unit of randomisation.

Setting

40 primary care clinics, staffed by nurse practitioners, in the Free State province, South Africa.

Participants

1999 patients aged 15 or over with cough or difficult breathing (1000 in intervention clinics, 999 in control clinics).

Intervention

Between two and six educational outreach sessions delivered to nurse practitioners by usual tr

SUBMITTER: Fairall LR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1239979 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature