Accelerating newborn survival in Ghana through a low-dose, high-frequency health worker training approach: a cluster randomized trial.

Background: Newborn deaths comprise nearly half of under-5 deaths in Ghana, despite the fact that skilled birth attendants (SBAs) are present at 68% of births, which implies that evidence-based care during labor, birth and the immediate postnatal period may be deficient. We assessed the effect of a low-dose, high-frequency (LDHF) training approach on long-term evidence-based skill retention among SBAs and impact on adverse birth outcomes.

Methods: From 2014 to 2017, we conducted a cluster-randomized trial in 40 hospitals in Ghana.