ArticleCardiovascular journal of Africa
Positive impact of training rural health workers in identification and prevention of acute rheumatic fever in eastern Uganda.
Article in Cardiovascular journal of Africa. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 2 citations in OpenAlex.
- Implementation and evaluation of a pragmatic community streptococcal treatment programme to improve rheumatic heart disease primary prevention in Uganda.BMJ global health · 2026Trial
- Bridging Knowledge Gaps in Rheumatic Heart Disease Prevention: A Narrative Review of Educational Interventions Across Resource-Limited Settings.Health services insights · 2026Review
- Rheumatic Heart Disease Education Tools Integrated Into a Screening Program in Brazil: Acceptability and Knowledge Gain.Global heart · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDiagnosis of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is mainly clinical. Delayed or missed diagnosis and failure to administer appropriate and timely treatment of ARF leads to rheumatic heart disease (RHD), which could necessitate expensive treatments such as open-heart surgery. Implementation of preventative guidelines depends on availability of trained healthcare workers. As part of the routine support supervision, the Uganda Heart Institute sent out a team to rural eastern Uganda to evaluate health workers' knowledge level regarding management of ARF.
methodsHealth workers from selected health facilities in Tororo district, eastern Uganda, were assessed for their knowledge on the clinical features and role of benzathine penicillin G (BPG) in the treatment and prevention of ARF recurrence. Using the RHD Action Needs assessment tool, we generated and administered a pre-test, then conducted training and re-administered a post-test. Eight months later, health workers were again assessed for knowledge retention and change in practices. Statistical analysis was done using Stata version 15.
resultsDuring the initial phase, 34 of the 109 (31%) health workers passed the pre-test, indicating familiarity with clinical features of ARF. The level of knowledge of BPG use in ARF was very poor in all the health units [25/109 (22.6%)] but improved after training to 80%, as shown by the chi-squared test (
conclusionsA critical knowledge gap is evident among health workers, both in awareness and treatment of ARF, and calls for repetitive training as a priority strategy in prevention.
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