Can community health workers screen under 5 yr children with computer program.

ABSTRACT

EKALAVYA computer program aims at high risk screening of under 5 children in Primary Health Centers by Community Health Workers (CHWs) simulating existing programs like CSSM, ICDS etc. This integrates many common symptoms like fever, respiratory, diarrhea, convulsions etc. along with health promotional aspects like growth, immunization etc. at Community Health Workers skills level. EKALAVYA program was user friendly for CHWs who were trained in 2-3 weeks. CHWs with computer guidance were compared with clinical evaluation of Research Team in 96 pediatric OPD cases in a teaching institution. Overall concordance was 91.66%. Symptom wise and severity wise analysis also showed good concordance. The study also indicated training and programme errors which could be easily corrected. EKALAVYA Program is now ready for field trial in PHCs for the guidance of CHWs in decision making.