Educational interventions to improve pediatric emergency care: A qualitative assessment of the perspectives of African healthcare workers.

Pediatric emergency care (PEC) training for health care workers (HCWs) is commonly offered in the form of short courses. This study gathers the perspectives of HCWs from eight African countries on how to best deliver and implement short training courses in PEC. This is a qualitative study using semi-structured key informant (KI) interviews.

Determining the quality of life of children living with epilepsy in Kenya-A cross-sectional study using the CHEQOL-25 tool.

Purpose: Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder that is often diagnosed in childhood and may negatively impact physical, social and psychological abilities. Most tools measuring quality of life (QoL) rely on parent/caregiver feedback rather than the child's perspective. CHEQOL-25 is a QoL tool that documents both child and caregiver perspectives across five domains.

Overnutrition: Does Complementary Feeding Play a Role?

Globally, obesity is considered an epidemic due to an increase in its prevalence and severity especially among young children and adolescents. This nutritional disorder is not limited to affluent countries as it is becoming increasingly prevalent in developing countries. Obesity is associated not only with cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, orthopedic, and respiratory diseases, but also with psychological complications, implying a problem of far-reaching consequences for health and health services.

Reference intervals for thyroid stimulating hormone and free thyroxine derived from neonates undergoing routine screening for congenital hypothyroidism at a university teaching hospital in Nairobi, Kenya: a cross sectional study.

Background: In order to accurately interpret neonatal thyroid function tests (TFTs), it is necessary to have population specific reference intervals (RIs) as there is significant variation across different populations possibly due to genetic, environmental or analytical issues. Despite the importance of RIs, globally there are very few publications on RIs for neonatal TFTs primarily due to ethical and technical issues surrounding recruitment of neonates for a prospective study. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report from Africa on neonatal RIs for TFTs.

Perceptions of the preparedness of medical graduates for internship responsibilities in district hospitals in Kenya: a qualitative study.

Background: Aga Khan University is developing its undergraduate medical education curriculum for East Africa. In Kenya, a 1 year internship is mandatory for medical graduates' registration as practitioners. The majority of approved internship training sites are at district hospitals.