Mothers Understand And Can do it (MUAC): a comparison of mothers and community health workers determining mid-upper arm circumference in 103 children aged from 6 months to 5 years

• Published in: Archives of public health = Archives belges de santé publique 2015-06, Vol.73 (1), p.26-26, Article 26
• Main Authors: Blackwell, Nikki, Myatt, Mark, Allafort-Duverger, Thierry, Balogoun, Amour, Ibrahim, Almou, Briend, André
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Children & youth; Classification; Comparative analysis; Consent; Health aspects; Hypotheses; Malnutrition; Medical personnel; Mothers; Public health; Workers
• ISSN: 0778-7367; 2049-3258; 2049-3258
• DOI: 10.1186/s13690-015-0074-z

Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) was recently endorsed and recommended for screening for acute malnutrition in the community. The objective of this study was to determine whether a colour-banded MUAC strap would allow minimally trained mothers to screen their own children for malnutrition, without locating the mid-point of the left upper arm by measurement, as currently recommended. A non-randomised non-blinded evaluation of mothers' performance when measuring MUAC after minimal training, compared with trained Community Health Workers (CHW) following current MUAC protocols. The study was conducted in 2 villages in Mirriah, Zinder region, Niger where mothers classified one of their children (n = 103) aged 6-59 months (the current age range for admission into community malnutrition programs) using the MUAC tape. Mothers' had a sensitivity and specificity for classification of their child's nutritional status of > 90% and > 80% respectively for global acute malnutrition (GAM, defined by a MUAC  73% and > 98% for severe acute malnutrition (SAM, defined by a MUAC