The Sierra Leone Ultrasound Rainbow4Africa Project (SLURP): an observational study of ultrasound effectiveness in developing countries

• Published in: Critical ultrasound journal 2016-12, Vol.8 (1), p.14-14, Article 14
• Main Authors: Lamorte, Alessandro, Boero, Enrico, Crida, Paola, Conteh, Abdul R., Foletti, Marco, Narcisi, Paolo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Critical Care Medicine; Developing Countries; Diagnostic; Diagnostic Radiology; Emergency Medicine; Imaging; Intensive; Interventional Radiology; Low-income countries; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Original; Original Article; Point-of-care ultrasound; Radiology; Rural context; Ultrasound
• ISSN: 2036-3176; 2036-7902; 2524-8987
• DOI: 10.1186/s13089-016-0051-y

Background Diagnostic tools available in low-income countries are often really basic even if patients can be as sick as those of the richer countries. Point-of-care ultrasound could be a solution for this problem. We studied the impact of ultrasound at the Holy Spirit Hospital, Makeni, Sierra Leone. Methods This is a prospective, observational study on outpatients presenting at the HSH. We enrolled continually for 1 month 105 patients asked for ultrasound examination by the caring physician that had to indicate the differential diagnosis hypothesized, the confidence degree about these on a 5-point Likert scale, and the therapy before and after the US. The primary outcome was to measure the difference in the number of differential diagnoses. Secondary outcomes were the rate of new diagnoses, the confidence changes of the visiting physician, and the changes in prescribed therapy or management. Categorical variables were compared using the Chi-square test, and continuous ones using two-tailed Student’s test and Likert with the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Results 194 differential diagnoses were formulated, with a mean of 1.85 (DS 0.87) diagnoses per patient. 89 (46%) were excluded on the basis of US, reducing the mean of differential diagnosis per patient to 1, 0 ( p