Symptom monitoring of childhood illnesses and referrals: A pilot study on the feasibility of a mobile phone-based system as a disease surveillance tool in a rural health district of Ghana

Despite the potential of mobile technology in improving health systems, its use as a surveillance tool is still unclear. This study aimed to examine the feasibility of a mobile phone-based system as a surveillance tool for identifying common symptoms of childhood illnesses. We conducted a community-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health informatics journal 2020-06, Vol.26 (2), p.1465-1476
Main Authors: Mohammed, Aliyu, Acheampong, Princess Ruhama, Otupiri, Easmon, Owusu-Dabo, Ellis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Caregivers
Cellular telephones
Children & youth
Feasibility
Illnesses
Monitoring systems
Pilot projects
Rural areas
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Summary:Despite the potential of mobile technology in improving health systems, its use as a surveillance tool is still unclear. This study aimed to examine the feasibility of a mobile phone-based system as a surveillance tool for identifying common symptoms of childhood illnesses. We conducted a community-based cross-sectional study involving caregivers (n = 161) of children under 5 years. The system was designed to assess disease symptoms of the sick children and provide health advice to caregivers regarding what to do with the sick child. The capacity of the system to correctly assess the disease symptoms of sick children, and provide referral was examined using Kappa statistics. Of the 126 calls recorded by the system, 52 (41.3%) were valid with complete data. The level of agreement between the system and clinicians’ report with respect to common symptoms of childhood illnesses varied: fever (kappa = 0.70, p 
ISSN:1460-4582
1741-2811
DOI:10.1177/1460458219879329