Developmental screening-evaluation of an m-Health version of the parents evaluation developmental status tools
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Date
Authors
Maleka, Boledi Karabo
Van der Linde, Jeannie
Glascoe, Frances Page
Swanepoel, De Wet
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert
Abstract
BACKGROUND : Developmental delays are more prevalent in low-income countries and access to developmental screening is severely limited. INTRODUCTION : This study evaluated an m-Health version of a standard developmental screening tool, Parents Evaluation Developmental Status (PEDS) and PEDS: Developmental Milestones (PEDS:DM) for use by community health workers (CHWs) in terms of (1) correspondence with conventional paper-based testing by a speech language pathologist (SLP) and (2) inter-rater reliability compared to an SLP. METHOD : CHWs were trained in a primary healthcare (PHC) setting to administer the newly developed smartphone application version of the PEDS tools. One SLP and two CHWs recruited 207 caregivers who were attending a baby wellness clinic. Caregivers were tested by one CHW using the smartphone application of the PEDS tools; a qualified SLP simultaneously recorded and scored the PEDS tools on the same participants. RESULTS : High positive (100%) and negative correspondence (96%) was found between the paper-based PEDS tools and the smartphone application PEDS tools and between the SLP and CHW. Almost perfect (Cohen’s Kappa) inter-rater agreement between conditions was demonstrated (j = 0.873 to j = 0.961). CONCLUSION : Outcomes of the smartphone application, operated by a CHW, corresponded closely to the gold standard PEDS tools operated by a health professional. Trained CHWs can conduct accurate developmental screening using the smartphone version of the PEDS tools.
Description
Keywords
E-health, M-health, Pediatrics, Technology, Parents evaluation developmental status (PEDS), Community health worker (CHW)
Sustainable Development Goals
Citation
Maleka, B.K., Van der Linde, J., Glascoe, F.P. & Swanepoel, D. 2016, 'Developmental screening-evaluation of an m-Health version of the parents evaluation developmental status tools', Telemedicine and e-Health, vol. 22, no. 12.