Pulse oximeter with integrated management of childhood illness for diagnosis of severe childhood pneumonia at rural health institutions in Southern Ethiopia: results from a cluster-randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To assess whether pulse oximetry improves health workers' performance in diagnosing severe childhood pneumonia at health centres in Southern Ethiopia.

Design

Parallel cluster-randomised trial.

Setting

Government primary health centres.

Participants

Twenty-four health centres that treat at least one pneumonia case per day in Southern Ethiopia. Children aged between 2 months and 59 months who present at health facilities with cough or difficulty breathing were recruited in the study from September 2018 to April 2019.

Intervention arm

Use of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) algorithm and pulse oximeter.

Control arm

Use of the IMCI algorithm only.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

The primary outcome was the

SUBMITTER: Tesfaye SH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7311017 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature