Evidence map›Paper›PMID 26392945›Full record

ArticlePublic health action2012

Simplified methods of determining treatment retention in Malawi: ART cohort reports vs. pharmacy stock cards.

A K Chan, E Singogo, R Changamire, Y E C Ratsma, J-M Tassie, A D Harries

Open access · diamondAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Public health action, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact, top 80% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 4 institutions in 5 countries.

A K ChanDignitas International, Zomba, Malawi ; Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ; Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
E SingogoDignitas International, Zomba, Malawi ; University of Malawi, Chancellor College, Zomba, Malawi.
R ChangamireDignitas International, Zomba, Malawi.
Y E C RatsmaDignitas International, Zomba, Malawi.
J-M TassieWorld Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
A D HarriesInternational Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Paris, France ; London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
Dignitas International · MWInstitute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences · CALondon School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine · GBWorld Health Organization · CH

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

settingRapid scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has challenged the health system in Malawi to monitor large numbers of patients effectively.

objectiveTo compare two methods of determining retention on treatment: quarterly ART clinic data aggregation vs. pharmacy stock cards.

designBetween October 2010 and March 2011, data on ART outcomes were extracted from monitoring tools at five facilities. Pharmacy data on ART consumption were extracted. Workload for each method was observed and timed. We used intraclass correlation and Bland-Altman plots to compare the agreeability of both methods to determine treatment retention.

resultsThere is wide variability between ART clinic cohort data and pharmacy data to determine treatment retention due to divergence in data at sites with large numbers of patients. However, there is a non-significant trend towards agreeability between the two methods (intraclass correlation coefficient > 0.9; P > 0.05). Pharmacy stock card monitoring is more time-efficient than quarterly ART data aggregation (81 min vs. 573 min).

conclusionIn low-resource settings, pharmacy records could be used to improve drug forecasting and estimate ART retention in a more time-efficient manner than quarterly data aggregation; however, a necessary precondition would be capacity building around pharmacy data management, particularly for large-sized cohorts.

Indexed as

ART retentiondrug forecastingMalawimonitoring and evaluation of HIV programme

Identifiers

PMID26392945
PMCPMC4536654
OpenAlexW2328947929

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.