Background: Even though significant progress has been made in the roll-out and quality of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services in South Africa, the quality of patient data recording remains a challenge. Objectives: To assess PMTCT data completeness and accuracy at primary healthcare level to district level in order to assist with the improvement of the PMTCT data recording.Methods: This is a retrospective record review study which involved collecting PMTCT data on indicators which was for the period of August 2009 to January 2010. We conducted baseline facility assessments which included 72 PMTCT sites in one health district, Nkangala. We assessed the data completeness and accuracy of the data values recorded on the seven PMTCT data elements.Results: Data were only complete for less than a quarter of the time for most of the antenatal indicators (0.5% – 44%) and for the maternity indicators, data were only complete 11% of the time. Data inaccuracy was a result of recording of data values in the District Health Information System (DHIS) which were not within 10% of the data values recorded in the case registers. The results show that data were missing from the case registers, monthly summary sheets and DHIS between 30% and 99% of the time and that data elements had values recorded in the DHIS which were > 10%.Conclusion: There is a need for ongoing training on data recording procedures at all levels. To maintain data quality, healthcare data must be appropriate, organised, timely, available, accurate and complete.
Background There is an unmet need for review methods to support priority-setting, policy-making and strategic planning when a wide variety of interventions from differing disciplines may have the potential to impact a health outcome of interest. This article describes a Modular Literature Review, a novel systematic search and review method that employs systematic search strategies together with a hierarchy-based appraisal and synthesis of the resulting evidence. Methods We designed the Modular Review to examine the effects of 43 interventions on a health problem of global significance. Using the PICOS (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, Study design) framework, we developed a single four-module search template in which population, comparison and outcome modules were the same for each search and the intervention module was different for each of the 43 interventions. A series of literature searches were performed in five databases, followed by screening, extraction and analysis of data. “ES documents”, source documents for effect size (ES) estimates, were systematically identified based on a hierarchy of evidence. The evidence was categorised according to the likely effect on the outcome and presented in a standardised format with quantitative effect estimates, meta-analyses and narrative reporting. We compared the Modular Review to other review methods in health research for its strengths and limitations. Results The Modular Review method was used to review the impact of 46 antenatal interventions on four specified birth outcomes within 12 months. A total of 61,279 records were found; 35,244 were screened by title-abstract. Six thousand two hundred seventy-two full articles were reviewed against the inclusion criteria resulting in 365 eligible articles. Conclusions The Modular Review preserves principles that have traditionally been important to systematic reviews but can address multiple research questions simultaneously. The result is an accessible, reliable answer to the question of “what works?”. Thus, it is a well-suited literature review method to support prioritisation, decisions and planning to implement an agenda for health improvement.
Background Low birth weight (LBW) is a significant public health concern given its association with early-life mortality and other adverse health consequences that can impact the entire life-cycle. In many countries, accurate estimates of LBW prevalence are lacking due to inaccuracies in collection and gaps in available data. Our study aimed to determine LBW prevalence among facility-born infants in selected areas of Kenya and Tanzania, and to assess whether the introduction of an intervention to improve the accuracy of birth-weight measurement would result in a meaningfully different estimate of LBW prevalence than current practice. Methods We carried out a historically-controlled intervention study in 22 health facilities in Kenya and three health facilities in Tanzania. The intervention included: provision of high-quality digital scales, training of nursing staff on accurate birth weight measurement, recording and scale calibration practices, and quality maintenance support that consisted of enhanced supervision and feedback (prospective arm). The historically-controlled data were birth weights from the same facilities recorded in maternity registers for the same calendar months from the previous year measured using routine practices and manual scales. Results Between October 2019 and February 2020, we prospectively collected birth weights from 8,441 newborns in Kenya and 4,294 in Tanzania. Historical data were available from 9,318 newborns in Kenya and 12,007 in Tanzania. In the prospective sample, the prevalence of LBW was 12.6% (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 10.9%-14.4%) in Kenya and 18.2% (12.2%-24.2%) in Tanzania. In the historical sample, the corresponding prevalence estimates were 7.8% (6.5%-9.2%) and 10.0% (8.6%-11.4%). Compared to the retrospective sample, the LBW prevalence in the prospective sample was 4.8%-points (3.2%-6.4%) higher in Kenya and 8.2%-points (2.3%-14.0%) higher in Tanzania, corresponding to a risk ratio of 1.61 (1.38–1.88) in Kenya and 1.81 (1.30–2.52) in Tanzania. Conclusion Routine birth weight records under-estimate the risk of LBW among facility born infants in Kenya and Tanzania. The quality of birth-weight data can be improved by a simple intervention consisting of provision of digital scales and supportive training.
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