View clinical trials related to Wasting.
Filter by:Child wasting is a type of malnutrition which occurs when a child becomes too thin. This medical condition increases the risk of becoming sick or dying. A child with severe wasting needs to be seen in a medical consultation to check on health status and to receive some medicine and a medical food supplement for daily consumption until cured. Yet, only a small proportion of children suffering from severe wasting are presently receiving appropriate treatment. In Kenya, there is an opportunity to build on the existing network of community health promoters (CHPs) to increase the number of children with wasting who are identified and treated. In intervention areas, CHPs will be equipped with smartphones and an application which provides guidance on household members to visit and simple actions to take, related to health. CHPs will distribute color-coded mid-upper arm circumference tapes to households with young children and train caregivers on how to use it. After training, CHPs will send Short Message Services (SMS) to remind caregivers to regularly measure the arm circumference of the child. In addition, CHPs will receive a scale to measure the weight of children every month. Finally, wasted children registered in the treatment program who fail to attend a planned consultation will be flagged to their CHP through the phone application, and CHPs will conduct a specific home visit to investigate and help solve potential issues. The study will assess whether this community intervention (called SWITCH) allows to identify and treat more children suffering from severe wasting. Before the start of the intervention, the proportion of wasted children receiving treatment in 40 community units in Turkana South, Turkana East and Aroo will be assessed. After this survey, a computer will randomly select 20 community units where the intervention will be scaled up. The survey will be repeated after 2 years to assess if the proportion of severely wasted children receiving treatment is higher in the area where the intervention was scaled up compared to the area where it was not scaled up. In addition, after 1 year of implementation, the study will assess how the intervention was scaled up, what are the main challenges, and what are the overall perceptions on the intervention in the community among those who receive it and those who deliver it. Finally, costs of the various components of the intervention will be measured for all actors involved, including for caregivers.
The R-SWITCH intervention aims to address the low coverage of treatment for severe wasting (SAM) by leveraging existing community groups to deliver an integrated package focused on prevention, screening, referral, and treatment of SAM. It includes behavior change communication on child nutrition and health, active screening, improved passive screening at health posts, and follow-up of referred cases and those enrolled in outpatient treatment programs (OTP). The primary objectives of the R-SWITCH studies are to assess the intervention's impact on OTP coverage, identify implementation barriers and facilitators, and evaluate its cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Weight-for-height/length z-score is one of the indicators used to diagnose acute malnutrition. In the existing method, the assessment involves three steps and takes significant time with a wider room for errors. A new tool is developed to address these drawbacks. A preliminary testing done show encouraging results, but a more robust study is needed. This research will b done with the objective of comparing diagnostic efficiency and reliability of the 'new' method against the 'existing' one using a diagnostic randomized clinical trial method.