Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Apr 25, 2020
Date Accepted: Jun 25, 2020
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Impact of home-based Intervention for the prevention and treatment of malaria among Under-five children in the West Region of Cameroon: A protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
One child dies of malaria in Africa every two minutes, although a preventable and curable disease. Home-based Management of malaria reduces the progression of severe malaria by more than 50%. Scalable, efficacious, and cost-effective strategies are needed to empower the capacities of home caregivers of children under five on health education, diagnosis and treatment of malaria at home.
Objective:
The main objective of this trial is to assess the impact of management of malaria in children under five by home caregivers for prevention, diagnosis and treatment compared to the home-based malaria management component of the integrated CDI strategy by Community Health Workers.
Methods:
A Randomized Controlled Trial will be conducted. The Community Health Workers will be used for the census of all household where there is at least one child under five with their home caregivers. Children under five and their home caregivers will be randomly selected into the intervention and control groups among the households identified. The trial will allow malaria home-based prevention and treatment of 350 children under-five by home caregivers in the Fombap area (Intervention group) where the Integrated Community Directed Interventions strategy is not implemented, compared to the home-based malaria management component of the integrated Community Directed Interventions strategy where 350 under five children will be follow-up through Community Health Workers in Penka-Michel health area (control group). The primary outcomes are the prevention and treatment of malaria of children under-five by home caregivers at home. The secondary outcomes comprise the malaria follow-up indicators produce by home caregivers in the intervention group and those produce by CHWs in the control group. Both descriptive and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) estimation techniques will be used to compare the mean difference in the two strategies.
Results:
From September to October 2019, all home caregivers with children under five were identified in the intervention and control group by CHWs. Then, 203 home caregivers with their 350 children under five were randomly selected and enrolled in the intervention area, and 225 home caregivers with their 350 under five children in the control group. In the intervention group, 203 home caregivers were trained in November 2019. This home treatment effectively started in December 2019 and will continue until May 2020.
Conclusions:
Findings from this randomized trial will contribute to resolve the challenges of severe malaria and limit the death of under-five children due to malaria. This will bring benefits to home caregivers who will know how to promptly diagnose and properly treat malaria in their children at home. Clinical Trial: Pan African Clinical Trial Registry in South Africa with unique identification number PACTR202003487018009; https://pactr.samrc.ac.za/researcher/managetrials.aspx.
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