The Dowa District executive committee (DEC) has approved an Interrupted Time Series (ITS) Study to measure the impact of new pediatric Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) guidelines to be implemented by the Pediatrics Child Health Association (PACHA) in four Central Hospitals and six pilot districts in Malawi including Dowa.
The study will be implemented in all Central Hospitals and district hospitals such as Nkhatabay, Mchinji, Dowa, Phalombe, Mwanza, Mulanje and Nsanje and one health centre under each district hospital.
The study will reveal gaps in the quality of care and service delivery in the management of pedriatic on non-communicable diseases [NCD] in the pilot health facilities and giving a glimpse into the local burden of NCDs in the country.
Introducing the study to the District executive committee in Dowa at a meeting held at the boma, PACHA’s Program Manager Chifundo Mchawa, said the study will target population through caretakers and healthcare in the pilot districts.
Mchawa said the objective of the study is to investigate the change in healthcare provision for pedriatic patients with NCDs before and after the implementation of the proposed guidelines and training.
She said the recent statistics in Malawi show that children and adolescents are now exposed to emerging threats of NCD saying the Interrupted Time Series (Its)Study Is designed to include mixed methods of approach to collect data on the burden of NCDs at the facilities, data related to quality care, healthcare interviews about NCDs and treatment.
The Manager said 10 data collectors will be trained to collect data using structured questionnaire uploaded onto tablets from pilot district hospitals, health centres and central hospitals saying pre-intervention data will be collected from September-December, 2023 while post – intervention data will be collected from January- June, 2026.
“All data will be well secured and will be treated with confidentiality, data collected will be secured in Kobo toolbox cloud server linked to the Power B1 for real-time visual dashboards,” said Mchawa.
In his remarks, Director for Health and Social Services for Dowa Dr. Peter Makoza, appealed to health partners in the district to work together with PACHA for the study to be implemented in the interest of all.
PACHA will implement an interrupted time series study to measure the impact of NCD guidelines in the six pilot districts in collaboration with Ministry of Health, Witten/Herdecke University with funding from EKFS of Germany.
