Implementation of kangaroo mother care: a randomized trial of two outreach strategies.
OBJECTIVE
To test whether a well-designed educational package on the implementation of kangaroo mother care (KMC) used on its own can be as effective in implementing KMC in a healthcare facility as the combination of a visiting facilitator used in conjunction with the package.


METHODS
Thirty-four hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa.


METHODS
The hospitals were paired with respect to their geographical location and annual number of births at the facility. One hospital in each pair was randomly allocated to receive either the implementation package alone (group A) or the implementation package and visits from a facilitator (group B). Hospitals in group B received three facilitation visits. All hospitals were evaluated by a site visit 8 mo after launching the process and were scored by means of a progress-monitoring tool.


RESULTS
Successful implementation was regarded as demonstrating evidence of practice (score>10) during the site visit.


RESULTS
Group B scored significantly better than group A (p<0.05). All 17 hospitals in group B demonstrated evidence of practice, with the median score of the group being 15.44 (range 10.29-22.94). Twelve of the hospitals in group A demonstrated evidence of practice and the median score was 11.33 (range 1.08-21.13).


CONCLUSIONS
Successful implementation was achieved in most of the hospitals irrespective of the strategy used. However, facilitation with an implementation package was clearly superior to using a package alone. Some sites do not need facilitation for successful implementation.
Pattinson
Robert C
RC
MRC Research Unit for Maternal and Infant Health Care Strategies and Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0001, South Africa.
Arsalo
Irmeli
I
Bergh
Anne-Marie
AM
Malan
Atties F
AF
Patrick
Mark
M
Phillips
Noel
N
D000488:Allied Health Personnel / Q000193:education*; D006780:Hospitals, Rural; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006786:Hospitals, Urban; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007224:Infant Care / Q000379:methods*; D007318:Inservice Training; D015397:Program Evaluation; D013019:South Africa