Observational studyJournal of global health2018
An observational study of monitoring of vital signs in children admitted to Kenyan hospitals: an insight into the quality of nursing care?
Observational study in Journal of global health, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Prognostic models for predicting in-hospital paediatric mortality in resource-limited countries: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2020Pooled it
- Pairwise joint modeling of clustered and high-dimensional outcomes with covariate missingness in pediatric pneumonia care.Pharmaceutical statistics · 2022Trial
- Risk factors for mortality in children with hypoxemia in resource-constrained settings: a secondary analysis of Global Paediatric Acute Critical Illness Point Prevalence Study (PARITY).BMC global and public health · 2026Article
- Developing context-sensitive, comprehensive newborn care protocols: integrating technologies with clinical care pathways for level 2 newborn units in Kenya.Journal of global health · 2025Article
- Unraveling the Implications of Digit Bias in Digital Health - A Literature Review.Internal medicine (Tokyo, Japan) · 2025Review
- Article
- Agreement between Vital Signs Measured Using Mat-Type Noncontact Sensors and Those from Conventional Clinical Assessment.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- General ward nurses detection and response to clinical deterioration in three hospitals at the Kenyan coast: a convergent parallel mixed methods study.BMC nursing · 2024Article
- Development of a small and sick newborn clinical audit tool and its implementation guide using a human-centred design approach newborn clinical audit process and design.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- Evaluating the effects of supplementing ward nurses on quality of newborn care in Kenyan neonatal units: protocol for a prospective workforce intervention study.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Article
- Implementing a comprehensive newborn monitoring chart: Barriers, enablers, and opportunities.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
- Performance of Automated Point-of-Care Respiratory Rate Counting versus Manual Counting in Children under Five Admitted with Severe Febrile Illness to Kisantu Hospital, DR Congo.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Using a human-centred design approach to develop a comprehensive newborn monitoring chart for inpatient care in Kenya.BMC health services research · 2021Article
- Can a low-cost exercise monitor provide useful heart rate monitoring for use in low-resource emergency departments?Clinical and experimental emergency medicine · 2021Article
- Employing learning health system principles to advance research on severe neonatal and paediatric illness in Kenya.BMJ global health · 2021Review
- Designing paper-based records to improve the quality of nursing documentation in hospitals: A scoping review.Journal of clinical nursing · 2021Article
- Effects of comprehensive care on complications, oxygenation indexes and guardian's psychological mood of children with neonatal respiratory distress syndrome.American journal of translational research · 2021Article
- Use of ultra-low cost fitness trackers as clinical monitors in low resource emergency departments.Clinical and experimental emergency medicine · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMeasurement and correct interpretation of vital signs is part of routine clinical care. Repeated measurement enhances early recognition of deterioration, may help prevent morbidity and mortality and is a standard of care in most countries.
objectiveTo examine documentation of vital signs by clinicians for admissions to paediatric wards in Kenyan hospitals, to describe monitoring frequency by nurses and explore factors influencing frequency.
methodsVital signs information (temperature, respiratory and pulse rate) for the first 48 hours of admission was collected from case records of children admitted with non-surgical conditions to 13 Kenyan county hospitals between September 2013 and April 2016. A mixed effect negative binomial regression model was used to explore whether the severity of illness (indicated by danger signs or severe diagnostic episodes) is associated with increased vital signs observation frequency.
resultsWe examined 54 800 admission episodes with an overall mortality 6.1%. Nurse to bed ratios were very low (1:10 to 1:41 across hospitals). Admitting clinicians documented all or no vital signs in 57.0% and 8.4% cases respectively. For respiratory and pulse rates there was pronounced even end-digit preference (an indicator of incorrect information) and high frequency recording of specific values (
conclusionsData suggest accurate admission measures are sometimes missing especially for pulse and respiratory rates, possibly linked to manual measurement. Monitoring frequency is often low in the high risk population studied probably indicating how quality of nursing care is undermined by considerable human resource shortages.
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Registered trials
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.