Journal article
The feasibility of novel point-of-care diagnostics for febrile illnesses at health centres in Southeast Asia: a mixed-methods study
- Abstract:
-
Background: The decline of malaria in Southeast Asia means other causes of fever are increasingly relevant, but often undiagnosed. The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of point-of-care tests to diagnose acute febrile illnesses in primary care settings.
Methods: A mixed-methods study was conducted at nine rural health centres in western Cambodia. Workshops introduced health workers to the STANDARD(TM) Q Dengue Duo, STANDARD(TM) Q Malaria/CRP Duo and a multiplex biosensor detecting antibodies and/or antigens of eight pathogens. Sixteen structured observation checklists assessed users’ performances and nine focus group discussions explored their opinions.
Results: All three point-of-care tests were performed well under assessment, but sample collection was difficult for the dengue test. Respondents expressed that the diagnostics were useful and could be integrated into routine clinical care, but were not as convenient to perform as standard malaria rapid tests. Health workers recommended that the most valued point-of-care tests would directly inform clinical management (e.g. a decision to refer a patient or to provide/withhold antibiotics).
Conclusions: Deployment of new point-of-care tests to health centres could be feasible and acceptable if they are user-friendly, selected for locally circulating pathogens and are accompanied by disease-specific education and simple management algorithms.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 659.0KB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1093/trstmh/trad036
Authors
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Journal:
- Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene More from this journal
- Volume:
- 117
- Issue:
- 11
- Pages:
- 788-796
- Publication date:
- 2023-06-15
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-05-22
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1878-3503
- ISSN:
-
0035-9203
- Pmid:
-
37317948
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1407739
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1407739
- Deposit date:
-
2023-06-23
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Adella, et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Notes:
- This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust [220211]. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record