| dc.description.abstract | Background: Despite of being easily preventable and treatable, malaria, pneumonia, and
diarrhea continue to be the major killers in Napak district therefore recent years have seen a
development of a new generation of programs which in Uganda is called Integrated
Community Case management of fever, pneumonia and diarrhea recommended by W.H.O
and UNICEF to address the inequitable gap of accessing effective treatment for the above
mentioned conditions. ICCM program was rolled out in Napak district in 2010 in which 440
VHTs were selected, trained and supported with supplies and medicines to treat children less
than five years in the community.
Main aim: To establish the factors that contributes to the success of ICCM program in
Napak district and the limitations.
Methodology: This was a cross sectional study of 166 VHTs and employed both quantitative
and qualitative methods of data collection. Data collection used both quantitative and
qualitative methods and analysis was by SPSS.
Results: There was high (96.4%) retention of VHTs in Napak district due to the community
involvement in the selection of VHTs and the appropriate attributes of persons selected
however a good number (66,9%) had never gone to school where a correlation test revealed
younger illiterate ( below 40 years) VHTs performed better than older VHTs. The program
has challenges in maintaining adequate stocks of supplies and medicines where it was found
VHTs did not have tracer medicines; ACTs, amoxicillin, ORs Zinc and rectal artesunate on
the day of the visit. The VHTs performance was not equal in assessment, classification, and
treatment of malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea. A significant number had gaps in knowledge
and competence where only 59 percent of the VHTs had adequate knowledge and lower
number (43.4%) had adequate competences in assessment, classification and treatment of
sick children. The main area of weakness was in counting respiratory rate of which (30.7%)
could not count respiratory breaths within three breaths of those counted by the qualified
research assistants that reveal a gap in classification and treatment of pneumonia putting
pressure on use of medicines.
Conclusion and recommendation: community involvement in the selection of VHTs has
played positive role but VHTs should be supported with continued training, adequate
supervision, regular monthly meetings and optimum provision of medicines, diagnostic aids
and other supplies. | en_US |
