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ObjectiveIn this study, we assess the indirect impact of COVID-19 on utilisation of immunisation and outpatient services in Kenya.DesignLongitudinal study.SettingData were analysed from all healthcare facilities reporting to Kenya’s health information system from January 2018 to March 2021. Multiple imputation was used to address missing data, interrupted time series analysis was used to quantify the changes in utilisation of services and sensitivity analysis was carried out to assess robustness of estimates.Exposure of interestCOVID-19 outbreak and associated interventions.Outcome measuresMonthly attendance to health facilities. We assessed changes in immunisation and various outpatient services nationally.ResultsBefore the first case of COVID-19 and pursuant intervention measures in March 2020, uptake of health services was consistent with historical levels. There was significant drops in attendance (level changes) in April 2020 for overall outpatient visits for under-fives (rate ratio, RR 0.50, 95% CI 0.44 to 0.57), under-fives with pneumonia (RR 0.43, 95% CI 0.38 to 0.47), overall over-five visits (RR 0.65, 95% CI 0.57 to 0.75), over-fives with pneumonia (RR 0.62, 95% CI 0.55 to 0.70), fourth antenatal care visit (RR 0.86, 95% CI 0.80 to 0.93), total hypertension (RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.82 to 0.96), diabetes cases (RR 0.95 95% CI, 0.93 to 0.97) and HIV testing (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.94 to 0.99). Immunisation services, first antenatal care visits, new cases of hypertension and diabetes were not affected. The post-COVID-19 trend was increasing, with more recent data suggesting reversal of effects and health services reverting to expected levels as of March 2021.ConclusionCOVID-19 pandemic has had varied indirect effects on utilisation of health services in Kenya. There is need for proactive and targeted interventions to reverse these effects as part of the pandemic’s response to avert non-COVID-19 indirect mortality.

The first case of severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was identified in March 2020 in Kenya resulting in the implementation of public health measures (PHM) to prevent large-scale epidemics. We aimed to quantify the impact of COVID-19 confinement measures on access to inpatient services using data from 204 Kenyan hospitals. Data on monthly admissions and deliveries from the District Health Information Software version 2 (DHIS 2) were extracted for the period January 2018 to March 2021 stratified by hospital ownership (public or private) and adjusting for missing data using multiple imputation (MI). We used the COVID-19 event as a natural experiment to examine the impact of COVID-19 and associated PHM on use of health services by hospital ownership. We estimated the impact of COVID-19 using two approaches; Statistical process control (SPC) charts to visualize and detect changes and Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis using negative-binomial segmented regression models to quantify the changes after March 2020. Sensitivity analysis was undertaken to test robustness of estimates using Generalised Estimating Equations (GEE) and impact of national health workers strike on observed trends. SPC charts showed reductions in most inpatient services starting April 2020. ITS modelling showed significant drops in April 2020 in monthly volumes of live-births (11%), over-fives admissions for medical (29%) and surgical care (25%) with the greatest declines in the under-five’s admissions (59%) in public hospitals. Similar declines were apparent in private hospitals. Health worker strikes had a significant impact on post-COVID-19 trends for total deliveries, live-births and caesarean section rate in private hospitals. COVID-19 has disrupted utilization of inpatient services in Kenyan hospitals. This might have increased avoidable morbidity and mortality due to non-COVID-19-related illnesses. The declines have been sustained. Recent data suggests a reversal in trends with services appearing to be going back to pre- COVID levels.

BackgroundUser fees have been reported to limit access to services and increase inequities. As a result, Kenya introduced a free maternity policy in all public facilities in 2013. Subsequently in 2017, the policy was revised to the Linda Mama programme to expand access to private sector, expand the benefit package and change its management.MethodsAn interrupted time-series analysis on facility deliveries, antenatal care (ANC) and postnatal care (PNC) visits data between 2012 and 2019 was used to determine the effect of the two free maternity policies. These data were from 5419 public and 305 private and faith-based facilities across all counties, with data sourced from the health information system. A segmented negative binomial regression with seasonality accounted for, was used to determine the level (immediate) effect and trend (month-on-month) effect of the policies.ResultsThe 2013 free-maternity policy led to a 19.6% and 28.9% level increase in normal deliveries and caesarean sections, respectively, in public facilities. There was also a 1.4% trend decrease in caesarean sections in public facilities. A level decrease followed by a trend increase in PNC visits was reported in public facilities. For private and faith-based facilities, there was a level decrease in caesarean sections and ANC visits followed by a trend increase in caeserean sections following the 2013 policy.Furthermore, the 2017 Linda Mama programme showed a level decrease then a trend increase in PNC visits and a 1.1% trend decrease in caesarean sections in public facilities. In private and faith-based facilities, there was a reported level decrease in normal deliveries and caesarean sections and a trend increase in caesarean sections.ConclusionThe free maternity policies show mixed effects in increasing access to maternal health services. Emphasis on other accessibility barriers and service delivery challenges alongside user fee removal policies should be addressed to realise maximum benefits in maternal health utilisation.

We have worked to develop a Clinical Information Network (CIN) in Kenya as an early form of learning health systems (LHS) focused on paediatric and neonatal care that now spans 22 hospitals. CIN’s aim was to examine important outcomes of hospitalisation at scale, identify and ultimately solve practical problems of service delivery, drive improvements in quality and test interventions. By including multiple routine settings in research, we aimed to promote generalisability of findings and demonstrate potential efficiencies derived from LHS. We illustrate the nature and range of research CIN has supported over the past 7 years as a form of LHS. Clinically, this has largely focused on common, serious paediatric illnesses such as pneumonia, malaria and diarrhoea with dehydration with recent extensions to neonatal illnesses. CIN also enables examination of the quality of care, for example that provided to children with severe malnutrition and the challenges encountered in routine settings in adopting simple technologies (pulse oximetry) and more advanced diagnostics (eg, Xpert MTB/RIF). Although regular feedback to hospitals has been associated with some improvements in quality data continue to highlight system challenges that undermine provision of basic, quality care (eg, poor access to blood glucose testing and routine microbiology). These challenges include those associated with increased mortality risk (eg, delays in blood transfusion). Using the same data the CIN platform has enabled conduct of randomised trials and supports malaria vaccine and most recently COVID-19 surveillance. Employing LHS principles has meant engaging front-line workers, clinical managers and national stakeholders throughout. Our experience suggests LHS can be developed in low and middle-income countries that efficiently enable contextually appropriate research and contribute to strengthening of health services and research systems.

Background Health workers’ compliance with outpatient malaria case-management guidelines has been improving in Africa. This study examined the factors associated with the improvements. Methods Data from 11 national, cross-sectional health facility surveys undertaken from 2010–2016 were analysed. Association between 31 determinants and improvement trends in five outpatient compliance outcomes were examined using interactions between each determinant and time in multilevel logistic regression models and reported as an adjusted odds ratio of annual trends (T-aOR). Results Among 9,173 febrile patients seen at 1,208 health facilities and by 1,538 health workers, a higher annual improvement trend in composite “test and treat” performance was associated with malaria endemicity-lake endemic (T-aOR = 1.67 annually; p25 febrile patients (T-aOR = 1.46; p = 0.003); and with under-five children compared to older patients (T-aOR = 1.07; p = 0.013). Other factors associated with the improvement trends in the “test and treat” policy components and artemether-lumefantrine administration at the facility included the absence of previous RDT stock-outs, community health workers dispensing drugs, access to malaria case-management and Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) guidelines, health workers’ gender, correct health workers’ knowledge about the targeted malaria treatment policy, and patients’ main complaint of fever. The odds of compliance at the baseline were variable for some of the factors. Conclusions Targeting of low malaria risk areas, low caseload facilities, male and government health workers, continuous availability of RDTs, improving health workers’ knowledge about the policy considering age and fever, and dissemination of guidelines might improve compliance with malaria guidelines. For prompt treatment and administration of the first artemether-lumefantrine dose at the facility, task-shifting duties to community health workers can be considered.

BackgroundWe explored who actually provides most admission care in hospitals offering supervised experiential training to graduating clinicians in a high mortality setting where practices deviate from guideline recommendations.MethodsWe used a large observational data set from 13 Kenyan county hospitals from November 2015 through November 2018 where patients were linked to admitting clinicians. We explored guideline adherence after creating a cumulative correctness of Paediatric Admission Quality of Care (cPAQC) score on a 5-point scale (0–4) in which points represent correct, sequential progress in providing care perfectly adherent to guidelines comprising admission assessment, diagnosis and treatment. At the point where guideline adherence declined the most we dichotomised the cPAQC score and used multilevel logistic regression models to explore whether clinician and patient-level factors influence adherence.ResultsThere were 1489 clinicians who could be linked to 53 003 patients over a period of 3 years. Patients were rarely admitted by fully qualified clinicians and predominantly by preregistration medical officer interns (MOI, 46%) and diploma level clinical officer interns (COI, 41%) with a median of 28 MOI (range 11–68) and 52 COI (range 5–160) offering care per study hospital. The cPAQC scores suggest that perfect guideline adherence is found in ≤12% of children with malaria, pneumonia or diarrhoea with dehydration. MOIs were more adherent to guidelines than COI (adjusted OR 1.19 (95% CI 1.07 to 1.34)) but multimorbidity was significantly associated with lower guideline adherence.ConclusionOver 85% of admissions to hospitals in high mortality settings that offer experiential training in Kenya are conducted by preregistration clinicians. Clinical assessment is good but classifying severity of illness in accordance with guideline recommendations is a challenge. Adherence by MOI with 6 years’ training is better than COI with 3 years’ training, performance does not seem to improve during their 3 months of paediatric rotations.

We describe hypoxemic pneumonia prevalence in outpatient and inpatient settings, in-hospital mortality, and clinical guideline performance for identifying hypoxemia in young infants in Malawi. In this retrospective analysis of a prospective cohort study, we investigate infants younger than 2 months participating in pneumonia surveillance at seven hospitals and 18 outpatient health centers in Malawi between 2011 and 2014. Logistic regression, multiple imputation with chained equations, and pattern mixture modeling were used to determine the association between peripheral capillary oxyhemoglobin saturation (SpO(2)) levels and hospital mortality. We describe outpatient clinician hospital referral recommendations based on clinical characteristics and SpO(2) distributions. Among 1,879 analyzed cases, SpO(2) < 90% was more prevalent among outpatient health center cases compared with hospitalized cases (22.6% versus 13.5%, 95% CI: 17.6–28.4% and 12.0–15.3%, respectively). A larger proportion of hospitalized infants had signs of respiratory distress compared with infants at health centers (67.7% versus 56.6%, P < 0.001) and most hospitalized infants were boys (56.7% versus 40.6%, P < 0.001). An SpO(2) of 90–92% and < 90% was associated with similarly increased odds of in-hospital mortality (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 4.3 and 4.4, 95% CI: 1.7–11.1 and 1.8–10.5, respectively). Unrecorded, or unobtainable, SpO(2) was highly associated with mortality (n = 127, aOR: 18.1; 95% CI: 7.6–42.8). Four of 22 (18%) infants at health centers who did not meet clinical referral criteria had an SpO(2) ≤ 92%. Clinicians should consider hospital referral in young infants with a SpO(2) ≤ 92%. Infants with unobtainable SpO(2) readings should be considered a high-risk group, and hospital referral of these cases may be appropriate.

Aim: Even though systematic reviews have examined how aspects of propensity score methods are used, none has reviewed how the challenge of missing data is addressed with these methods. This review therefore describes how missing data are addressed with propensity score methods in observational comparative effectiveness studies. Methods: Published articles on observational comparative effectiveness studies were extracted from MEDLINE and EMBASE databases. Results: Our search yielded 167 eligible articles. Majority of these studies (114; 68%) conducted complete case analysis with only 53 of them stating this in the methods. Only 16 articles reported use of multiple imputation. Conclusion: Few researchers use correct methods for handling missing data or reported missing data methodology which may lead to reporting biased findings.

INTRODUCTION:Malaria surveillance is a key pillar in the control of malaria in Africa. The value of using routinely collected data from health facilities to define malaria risk at community levels remains poorly defined. METHODS:Four cross-sectional parasite prevalence surveys were undertaken among residents at 36 enumeration zones in Kilifi county on the Kenyan coast and temporally and spatially matched to fever surveillance at 6 health facilities serving the same communities over 12 months. The age-structured functional form of the relationship between test positivity rate (TPR) and community-based parasite prevalence (PR) was explored through the development of regression models fitted by alternating the linear, exponential and polynomial terms for PR. The predictive ranges of TPR were explored for PR endemicity risk groups of control programmatic value using cut-offs of low (PR RESULTS:Among 28,134 febrile patients encountered for malaria diagnostic testing in the health facilities, 12,143 (43.2%: 95% CI: 42.6%, 43.7%) were positive. The overall community PR was 9.9% (95% CI: 9.2%, 10.7%) among 6,479 participants tested for malaria. The polynomial model was the best fitting model for the data that described the algebraic relationship between TPR and PR. In this setting, a TPR of ≥ 49% in all age groups corresponded to an age-standardized PR of ≥ 30%, while a TPR of < 40% corresponded to an age-standardized PR of < 5%. CONCLUSION:A non-linear relationship was observed between the relative change in TPR and changes in the PR, which is likely to have important implications for malaria surveillance programs, especially at the extremes of transmission. However, larger, more spatially diverse data series using routinely collected TPR data matched to community-based infection prevalence data are required to explore the more practical implications of using TPR as a replacement for community PR.

ObjectivesTo identify and appraise the methodological rigour of multivariable prognostic models predicting in-hospital paediatric mortality in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).DesignSystematic review of peer-reviewed journals.Data sourcesMEDLINE, CINAHL, Google Scholar and Web of Science electronic databases since inception to August 2019.Eligibility criteriaWe included model development studies predicting in-hospital paediatric mortality in LMIC.Data extraction and synthesisThis systematic review followed the Checklist for critical Appraisal and data extraction for systematic Reviews of prediction Modelling Studies framework. The risk of bias assessment was conducted using Prediction model Risk of Bias Assessment Tool (PROBAST). No quantitative summary was conducted due to substantial heterogeneity that was observed after assessing the studies included.ResultsOur search strategy identified a total of 4054 unique articles. Among these, 3545 articles were excluded after review of titles and abstracts as they covered non-relevant topics. Full texts of 509 articles were screened for eligibility, of which 15 studies reporting 21 models met the eligibility criteria. Based on the PROBAST tool, risk of bias was assessed in four domains; participant, predictors, outcome and analyses. The domain of statistical analyses was the main area of concern where none of the included models was judged to be of low risk of bias.ConclusionThis review identified 21 models predicting in-hospital paediatric mortality in LMIC. However, most reports characterising these models are of poor quality when judged against recent reporting standards due to a high risk of bias. Future studies should adhere to standardised methodological criteria and progress from identifying new risk scores to validating or adapting existing scores.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42018088599.

© 2018 Journal of Global Health. Background Measurement and correct interpretation of vital signs is part of routine clinical care. Repeated measurement enhances early recognition of deterioration, may help prevent morbidity and mortality and is a standard of care in most countries. Objective To examine documentation of vital signs by clinicians for admissions to paediatric wards in Kenyan hospitals, to describe monitoring frequency by nurses and explore factors influencing frequency. Methods Vital signs information (temperature, respiratory and pulse rate) for the first 48 hours of admission was collected from case records of children admitted with non-surgical conditions to 13 Kenyan county hospitals between September 2013 and April 2016. A mixed effect negative binomial regression model was used to explore whether the severity of illness (indicated by danger signs or severe diagnostic episodes) is associated with increased vital signs observation frequency. Results We examined 54 800 admission episodes with an overall mortality 6.1%. Nurse to bed ratios were very low (1:10 to 1:41 across hospitals). Admitting clinicians documented all or no vital signs in 57.0% and 8.4% cases respectively. For respiratory and pulse rates there was pronounced even end-digit preference (an indicator of incorrect information) and high frequency recording of specific values (P < 0.001) suggesting approximation. Monitoring frequency was explored in 41 738 children. Those with inpatient stays =48 hours were expected to have a vital signs count of 18, hospitals varied but most did not achieve this benchmark (median 9, range 2-30). There were clinically small but significant associations between vital signs count and presence of multiple severe illnesses or presence of severe pallor (adjusted relative risk ratio = 1.04, P < 0.01, 95% confidence interval CI = 1.02-1.06 and 1.05, P = 0.02, 95% CI = 1.01-1.09, respectively). Conclusions Data suggest accurate admission measures are sometimes missing especially for pulse and respiratory rates, possibly linked to manual measurement. Monitoring frequency is often low in the high risk population studied probably indicating how quality of nursing care is undermined by considerable human resource shortages.

Objective To describe the prevalence and types of injuries in relation to traumatic experiences, posttraumatic stress symptoms, depression, and health-risk behaviors among university students in Kenya. Method A cross-sectional study collected data on a random sample of university students using a questionnaire to record sociodemographic variables while injuries experiences recorded using the Centers for Disease control criteria and Breslau’s seven-item screener was used to identify post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Depressive symptoms were measured using Center for Epidemiological Studies Short Depression Scale. Results Nine hundred and twenty-three students (525 male and 365 female) were included in the study, mean age 23 years (SD 4.0). Serious injury in the previous 12 months was reported by 29.00% of the students. PTSD was present in 15.67% (men 15.39% and women 16.1%). Out of the total, 41.33% of the students had depressive symptoms (35.71% mild–moderate symptoms and 5.62% severe). In the multivariable logistic regression being poor, binge drinking, tobacco use, ever been diagnosed with HIV, physically abused as a child, high PTSD score, and depression (adjusted odds ratio 5.49, 95% confidence interval 4.32–13.21) were significantly ( p value Conclusion Unintentional injuries and PTSD symptoms are common in this student population and are positively linked to depression and other risky behaviors. Measures aimed at improving the mental health, such as early identification and treatment of depression, may be useful in reducing the prevalence of such injuries among the youth.

Objective To share approaches and innovations adopted to deliver a relatively inexpensive clinical data management (CDM) framework within a low-income setting that aims to deliver quality pediatric data useful for supporting research, strengthening the information culture and informing improvement efforts in local clinical practice. Materials and methods The authors implemented a CDM framework to support a Clinical Information Network (CIN) using Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap), a noncommercial software solution designed for rapid development and deployment of electronic data capture tools. It was used for collection of standardized data from case records of multiple hospitals’ pediatric wards. R, an open-source statistical language, was used for data quality enhancement, analysis, and report generation for the hospitals. Results In the first year of CIN, the authors have developed innovative solutions to support the implementation of a secure, rapid pediatric data collection system spanning 14 hospital sites with stringent data quality checks. Data have been collated on over 37 000 admission episodes, with considerable improvement in clinical documentation of admissions observed. Using meta-programming techniques in R, coupled with branching logic, randomization, data lookup, and Application Programming Interface (API) features offered by REDCap, CDM tasks were configured and automated to ensure quality data was delivered for clinical improvement and research use. Conclusion A low-cost clinically focused but geographically dispersed quality CDM (Clinical Data Management) in a long-term, multi-site, and real world context can be achieved and sustained and challenges can be overcome through thoughtful design and implementation of open-source tools for handling data and supporting research.

ObjectivesKenyan guidelines for antibiotic treatment of pneumonia recommended treatment of pneumonia characterised by indrawing with injectable penicillin alone in inpatient settings until early 2016. At this point, they were revised becoming consistent with WHO guidance after results of a Kenyan trial provided further evidence of equivalence of oral amoxicillin and injectable penicillin. This change also made possible use of oral amoxicillin for outpatient treatment in this patient group. However, given non-trivial mortality in Kenyan children with indrawing pneumonia, it remained possible they would benefit from a broader spectrum antibiotic regimen. Therefore, we compared the effectiveness of injectable penicillin monotherapy with a regimen combining penicillin with gentamicin.SettingWe used a large routine observational dataset that captures data on all admissions to 13 Kenyan county hospitals.Participants and measuresThe analyses included children aged 2–59 months. Selection of study population was based on inclusion criteria typical of a prospective trial, primary analysis (experiment 1, n=4002), but we also explored more pragmatic inclusion criteria (experiment 2, n=6420) as part of a secondary analysis. To overcome the challenges associated with the non-random allocation of treatments and missing data, we used propensity score (PS) methods and multiple imputation to minimise bias. Further, we estimated mortality risk ratios using log binomial regression and conducted sensitivity analyses using an instrumental variable and PS trimming.ResultsThe estimated risk of dying, in experiment 1, in those receiving penicillin plus gentamicin was 1.46 (0.85 to 2.43) compared with the penicillin monotherapy group. In experiment 2, the estimated risk was 1.04(0.76 to 1.40).ConclusionThere is no statistical difference in the treatment of indrawing pneumonia with either penicillin or penicillin plus gentamicin. By extension, it is unlikely that treatment with penicillin plus gentamicin would offer an advantage to treatment with oral amoxicillin.

IntroductionWHO treatment guidelines are widely recommended for guiding treatment for millions of children with pneumonia every year across multiple low-income and middle-income countries. Guidelines are based on synthesis of available evidence that provides moderate certainty in evidence of effects for forms of pneumonia that can result in hospitalisation. However, trials have included fewer children from Africa than other settings, and it is suggested that African children with pneumonia have higher mortality. Thus, despite improving access to recommended treatments and deployment with high coverage of childhood vaccines, pneumonia remains one of the top causes of mortality for children in Kenya. Establishing whether there are benefits of alternative treatment regimens to help reduce mortality would require pragmatic clinical trials. However, these remain relatively expensive and time consuming. This protocol describes an approach to using secondary analysis of a new, large observational dataset as a potentially cheaper and quicker way to examine the comparative effectiveness of penicillin versus penicillin plus gentamicin in treatment of indrawing pneumonia. Addressing this question is important, as although it is now recommended that this form of pneumonia is treated with oral medication as an outpatient, it remains associated with non-trivial mortality that may be higher outside trial populations.Methods and analysisWe will use a large observational dataset that captures data on all admissions to 13 Kenyan county hospitals. These data represent the findings of clinicians in practice and, because the system was developed for large observational research, pose challenges of non-random treatment allocation and missing data. To overcome these challenges, this analysis will use a rigorous approach to study design, propensity score methods and multiple imputation to minimise bias.Ethics and disseminationThe primary data are held by hospitals participating in the Kenyan Clinical Information Network project with de-identifed data shared with the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)-Wellcome Trust Research Programme for agreed analyses. The use of data for the analysis described received ethical clearance from the KEMRI scientific and ethical review committee. The findings of this analysis will be published.

Background Audit and feedback (A&F;) is widely used in healthcare but there are few examples of how to deploy it at scale in low-income countries. Establishing the Clinical Information Network (CIN) in Kenya provided an opportunity to examine the effect of A&F; delivered as part of a wider set of activities to promote paediatric guideline adherence. Methods We analysed data collected from medical records on discharge for children aged 2–59 months from 14 Kenyan hospitals in the CIN. Hospitals joined CIN in phases and for each we analysed their initial 25 months of participation that occurred between December 2013 and March 2016. A total of 34 indicators of adherence to recommendations were selected for evaluation each classified by form of feedback (passive, active and none) and type of task (simple or difficult documentation and those requiring cognitive work). Performance change was explored graphically and using generalised linear mixed models with attention given to the effects of time and use of a standardised paediatric admission record (PAR) form. Results Data from 60 214 admissions were eligible for analysis. Adherence to recommendations across hospitals significantly improved for 24/34 indicators. Improvements were not obviously related to nature of feedback, may be related to task type and were related to PAR use in the case of documentation indicators. There was, however, marked variability in adoption and adherence to recommended practices across sites and indicators. Hospital-specific factors, low baseline performance and specific contextual changes appeared to influence the magnitude of change in specific cases. Conclusion Our observational data suggest some change in multiple indicators of adherence to recommendations (aspects of quality of care) can be achieved in low-resource hospitals using A&F; and simple job aides in the context of a wider network approach.

Background Hospital mortality data can inform planning for health interventions and may help optimize resource allocation if they are reliable and appropriately interpreted. However such data are often not available in low income countries including Kenya. Methods Data from the Clinical Information Network covering 12 county hospitals’ paediatric admissions aged 2–59 months for the periods September 2013 to March 2015 were used to describe mortality across differing contexts and to explore whether simple clinical characteristics used to classify severity of illness in common treatment guidelines are consistently associated with inpatient mortality. Regression models accounting for hospital identity and malaria prevalence (low or high) were used. Multiple imputation for missing data was based on a missing at random assumption with sensitivity analyses based on pattern mixture missing not at random assumptions. Results The overall cluster adjusted crude mortality rate across hospitals was 6 · 2% with an almost 5 fold variation across sites (95% CI 4 · 9 to 7 · 8; range 2 · 1% - 11 · 0%). Hospital identity was significantly associated with mortality. Clinical features included in guidelines for common diseases to assess severity of illness were consistently associated with mortality in multivariable analyses (AROC =0 · 86). Conclusion All-cause mortality is highly variable across hospitals and associated with clinical risk factors identified in disease specific guidelines. A panel of these clinical features may provide a basic common data framework as part of improved health information systems to support evaluations of quality and outcomes of care at scale and inform health system strengthening efforts.

Severe anemia is a leading indication for blood transfusion and a major cause of hospital admission and mortality in African children. Failure to initiate blood transfusion rapidly enough contributes to anemia deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. This article examines delays in accessing blood and outcomes in transfused children in Kenyan hospitals. Children admitted with nonsurgical conditions in 10 Kenyan county hospitals participating in the Clinical Information Network who had blood transfusion ordered from September 2013 to March 2016 were studied. The delay in blood transfusion was calculated from the date when blood transfusion was prescribed to date of actual transfusion. Five percent (2,875/53,174) of admissions had blood transfusion ordered. Approximately half (45%, 1,295/2,875) of children who had blood transfusion ordered at admission had a documented hemoglobin < 5 g/dl and 36% (2,232/6,198) of all children admitted with a diagnosis of anemia were reported to have hemoglobin < 5 g/dL. Of all the ordered transfusions, 82% were administered and documented in clinical records, and three-quarters of these (75%, 1,760/2,352) were given on the same day as ordered but these proportions varied from 71% to 100% across the 10 hospitals. Children who had a transfusion ordered but did not receive the prescribed transfusion had a mortality of 20%, compared with 12% among those transfused. Malaria-associated anemia remains the leading indication for blood transfusion in acute childhood illness admissions. Delays in transfusion are common and associated with poor outcomes. Variance in delay across hospitals may be a useful indicator of health system performance.

In many low income countries health information systems are poorly equipped to provide detailed information on hospital care and outcomes. Information is thus rarely used to support practice improvement. We describe efforts to tackle this challenge and to foster learning concerning collection and use of information. This could improve hospital services in Kenya. We are developing a Clinical Information Network, a collaboration spanning 14 hospitals, policy makers and researchers with the goal of improving information available on the quality of inpatient paediatric care across common childhood illnesses in Kenya. Standardised data from hospitals’ paediatric wards are collected using non-commercial and open source tools. We have implemented procedures for promoting data quality which are performed prior to a process of semi-automated analysis and routine report generation for hospitals in the network. In the first phase of the Clinical Information Network, we collected data on over 65,000 admission episodes. Despite clinicians’ initial unfamiliarity with routine performance reporting, we found that, as an initial focus, both engaging with each hospital and providing them information helped improve the quality of data and therefore reports. The process has involved mutual learning and building of trust in the data and should provide the basis for collaborative efforts to improve care, to understand patient outcome, and to evaluate interventions through shared learning. We have found that hospitals are willing to support the development of a clinically focused but geographically dispersed Clinical Information Network in a low-income setting. Such networks show considerable promise as platforms for collaborative efforts to improve care, to provide better information for decision making, and to enable locally relevant research.

Background Prevalence rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection among the youth are disproportionately high compared to that of other age groups in Kenya. Poor mental health has been linked to risky HIV behaviour, yet few local studies have explored these aspects. This study sought to determine associations between HIV risky sexual behaviour and depression among undergraduate students at the University of Nairobi. Method A random sample of 923 (525 males and 365 females) undergraduate students was interviewed using a questionnaire to record sociodemographic variables and risky sexual behaviour including having multiple sexual partners, inconsistent condom use and engaging in sex after drinking. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Short Depression Scale (CES-D 10). Results The students’ mean age was 23 years (s.d.4.0). Overall, 41.33% of the students scored above the cut-off point of 10 on the CES-D 10 scale, with 35.71% having moderate symptoms and 5.62% having severe depressive symptoms. The percentage of those who had ever been diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) was 9.71% (males 8.65%; females 11.01%); and for HIV 3.04% (males 2.02%; females 4.05%). Nearly 30% reported having had multiple partners in the previous 12 months, 27.4% of the students did not use condoms with sexual partners and 21% had engaged in sex after drinking within the previous 3 months. In multivariable-bivariate logistic regression, being older, having depressive symptoms, alcohol use/binge drinking, tobacco use, sex after drinking, previous diagnosis of STI, physical abuse, sexual coercion and history of sexual abuse as a child were significantly associated with having multiple partners. Further, younger age, being female, tobacco use and previous diagnosis of STI were significantly associated with inconsistent condom use. Conclusion The prevalence of HIV rate infection is low compared to the national average but risky sexual behaviour is common among the students and is positively linked to depressive symptoms among other factors. Programmes aimed at HIV prevention should be integrated with mental health interventions.

Background Depression is a common cause of morbidity but prevalence levels among Kenyan university students are poorly understood. A better understanding of depression and its correlates is essential in planning for appropriate interventions in this population group. Method A random sample of 923 University of Nairobi students (525 male and 365 female) were interviewed using a questionnaire to record sociodemographic variables. Depressive symptoms were measured using Centre for Epidemiological Studies Short Depression Scale (CES – D 10). Results The mean age was 23 (s.d. 4.0). Using a cut-off point of 10, the overall prevalence of moderate depressive symptoms was 35.7% (33.5% males and 39.0% females) and severe depression was 5.6% (5.3% males and 5.1% female). Depressive illness was significantly more common among the first year students, those who were married; those who were economically disadvantaged and those living off campus. Other variables significantly related to higher depression levels included year of study, academic performance, religion and college attended. Logistic regression showed that those students who used tobacco, engaged in binge drinking and those who had an older age were more likely to be depressed. No difference was noted with respect to gender. Limitations This was a cross sectional study relying on self report of symptoms and could therefore be inaccurate. Although the study was conducted in the largest university in the country that admits students from diverse backgrounds in the country there could still be regional differences in other local universities. Conclusion Depression occurs in a significant number of students. Appropriate interventions should be set up in higher institutions of learning to detect and treat these disorders paying particular attention to those at risk.