Effect of pre-consultation testing on clinicians’ adherence to malaria test results and waiting time among children under 5 years in the Northern Zone of Volta Region of Ghana

• Published in: Malaria Journal
• Main Authors: Jonathan Mawutor Gmanyami, Asiwome Ameko, Saviour Selase Ahiafe, Samuel Adolf Bosoka, Margaret Kweku, Evelyn Korkor Ansah
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2020
• Subjects: Pre-consultation testing; Post-consultation testing; Clinician; Adherence; Waiting time; Ghana; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Infectious and parasitic diseases; RC109-216; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12936-020-03189-6; https://doaj.org/article/f32b64c7407f4c1597ccc9253dbdc7b0

Abstract Background The Ministry of Health, Ghana, in accordance with global policy, recommends that all suspected malaria cases be confirmed parasitologically before treatment. Not all clinicians, however, base their treatment on test results. Patients also spend a lot of time at health facilities waiting to consult a clinician before being asked to go for testing and to see a clinician with test results. The purpose of the study was to determine if testing all children aged 6 to 59 months with fever reporting at an outpatients department (OPD) for malaria before consultation with a clinician (pre-consultation testing) will influence clinicians to adhere to test results and also reduce the time spent by such patients. Methods A quasi-experimental study design was used involving two randomly selected government-owned hospitals in the Northern Volta, Ghana. In each hospital, 439 children were recruited between November 2018 and January 2019. The intervention hospital implemented pre-consultation testing. In the comparator arm, standard practices, which involved patients seeing the clinician before he/she decides whether to send the patient for testing or not, were maintained. Results Out of 878 children screened the overall prevalence of malaria was 31.9% by malaria rapid diagnostic test (RDT) and 26.7% by microscopy. Clinicians in the intervention arm adhered more to the malaria test results than those in the comparator arm (93.2 vs. 84.3%; p < 0.001). The proportion of children who tested negative but were still diagnosed with malaria was significantly lower in the intervention arm compared to the comparator arm (8.4 vs. 21.2%: p < 0.001). Clinicians and mothers/caregivers in both arms preferred pre-consulting testing. Six out of every 10 mothers/caregivers in the comparator arm viewed the waiting time as ‘too long’’ compared to 4 out of every 10 mothers in the intervention arm. On average, patient waiting time was significantly lower in the intervention arm (2.61 h) than in the comparator arm (3.42 h). ...