Trial reportBMJ global health2024
Task-sharing spinal anaesthesia care in three rural Indian hospitals: a non-inferiority randomised controlled clinical trial.
Trial report in BMJ global health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04438811 (Task-based Credentialing for Medical Officers in Spinal Anesthesia), which is not on this map. Cited by 5 papers.
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.
Task-based Credentialing for Medical Officers in Spinal Anesthesia: An Innovative Approach to the Specialist Workforce Crisis in Rural Indian Hospitals Curriculum Training of Medical Officers
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Capacity building through workforce training and community engagement for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma, and Anaesthesia (SOTA) care: Case studies from South Asia.Dialogues in health · 2026Review
- The effect of deploying non-physician anaesthesia providers on surgical access and capacity across Nepal's primary and secondary government hospitals: a quasi-experimental mixed methods study.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Data Innovation, Program Implementation, and Community Action (DIPICA) Observatory for Surgical, Anesthesia, and Obstetric (SAO) Care in India.BMC proceedings · 2025Article
- Global anaesthesia practice using inguinal hernia surgery as a tracer condition: a secondary analysis of an international prospective cohort study.Anaesthesia · 2025Article
- Breaking ground: insights from a WHO-approved surgical mission amid Sudan's healthcare collapse.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
22 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTask-sharing of spinal anaesthesia care by non-specialist graduate physicians, termed medical officers (MOs), is commonly practised in rural Indian healthcare facilities to mitigate workforce constraints. We sought to assess whether spinal anaesthesia failure rates of MOs were non-inferior to those of consultant anaesthesiologists (CA) following a standardised educational curriculum.
methodsWe performed a randomised, non-inferiority trial in three rural hospitals in Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh, India. Patients aged over 18 years with low perioperative risk (ASA I & II) were randomised to receive MO or CA care. Prior to the trial, MOs underwent task-based anaesthesia training, inclusive of remotely accessed lectures, simulation-based training and directly observed anaesthetic procedures and intraoperative care. The primary outcome measure was spinal anaesthesia failure with a non-inferiority margin of 5%. Secondary outcome measures consisted of incidence of perioperative and postoperative complications.
findingsBetween 12 July 2019 and 8 June 2020, a total of 422 patients undergoing surgical procedures amenable to spinal anaesthesia care were randomised to receive either MO (231, 54.7%) or CA care (191, 45.2%). Spinal anaesthesia failure rate for MOs (7, 3.0%) was non-inferior to those of CA (5, 2.6%); difference in success rate of 0.4% (95% CI=0.36-0.43%; p=0.80). Additionally, there were no statistically significant differences observed between the two groups for intraoperative or postoperative complications, or patients' experience of pain during the procedure.
interpretationThis study demonstrates that failure rates of spinal anaesthesia care provided by trained MOs are non-inferior to care provided by CAs in low-risk surgical patients. This may support policy measures that use task-sharing as a means of expanding anaesthesia care capacity in rural Indian hospitals. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04438811.
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