Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30628566›Full record

Trial reportThe American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene2019

The Effect of Text Message Reminders to Health Workers on Quality of Care for Malaria, Pneumonia, and Diarrhea in Malawi: A Cluster-Randomized, Controlled Trial.

Laura C Steinhardt, Don P Mathanga, Dyson Mwandama, Humphreys Nsona, Dubulao Moyo, Austin Gumbo, Miwako Kobayashi, Ruth Namuyinga, Monica P Shah, Andy Bauleni and 3 more

Open access · bronzeAbstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
1.5field-weighted citation impact, top 15% 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

3 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
  3. Review
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

13 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.

Laura C SteinhardtMalaria Branch, Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
Don P MathangaMalaria Alert Centre, College of Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi.
Dyson MwandamaMalaria Alert Centre, College of Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi.
Humphreys NsonaMinistry of Health, Lilongwe, Malawi.
Dubulao MoyoMinistry of Health, Lilongwe, Malawi.
Austin GumboMinistry of Health, Lilongwe, Malawi.
Miwako KobayashiRespiratory Diseases Branch, Division of Bacterial Diseases, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
Ruth NamuyingaMalaria Branch, Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
Monica P ShahMalaria Branch, Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
Andy BauleniMalaria Alert Centre, College of Medicine, Blantyre, Malawi.
Peter TroellUS President's Malaria Initiative, Malaria Branch, Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lilongwe, Malawi.
Dejan ZurovacCentre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Alexander K RoweMalaria Branch, Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · USMinistry of Health · MWDivision of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria · USUniversity of Oxford · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The use of mobile technologies in medicine, or mHealth, holds promise to improve health worker (HW) performance, but evidence is mixed. We conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effect of text message reminders to HWs in outpatient health facilities (HFs) on quality of care for malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea in Malawi. After a baseline HF survey (2,360 patients) in January 2015, 105 HFs were randomized to three arms: 1) text messages to HWs on malaria case management; 2) text messages to HWs on malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea case management (latter two for children < 5 years); and 3) control arm (no messages). Messages were sent beginning April 2015 twice daily for 6 months, followed by an endline HF survey (2,536 patients) in November 2015. An intention-to-treat analysis with difference-in-differences binomial regression modeling was performed. The proportion of patients with uncomplicated malaria managed correctly increased from 42.8% to 59.6% in the control arm, from 43.7% to 55.8% in arm 1 (effect size -4.7%-points, 95% confidence interval (CI): -18.2, 8.9,

Indexed as

AdolescentAdultAgedAmbulatory Care FacilitiesAnti-Bacterial AgentsAntimalarialsChildCluster AnalysisDiarrheaFemaleGuideline AdherenceHealth PersonnelHumansIntention to Treat AnalysisMalariaMalawiAnti-Bacterial AgentsAntimalarials

Identifiers

PMID30628566
PMCPMC6367625
OpenAlexW2909082560

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.