Strengthening referral of sick children from the private health sector and its impact on referral uptake in Uganda: a cluster randomized controlled trial protocol

Background: Uganda's under-five mortality is high, currently estimated at 66/1000 live births. Poor referral of sick children that seek care from the private sector is one of the contributory factors. The proposed intervention aims to improve referral and uptake of referral advice for children that seek care from private facilities (registered drug shops/private clinics). Methods/Design: A cluster randomized design will be applied to test the intervention in Mukono District, central Uganda. A sample of study clusters will implement the intervention. The intervention will consist of three components: i) raising awareness in the community: village health teams will discuss the importance of referral and encourage households to save money, ii) training and supervision of providers in the private sector to diagnose, treat and refer sick children, iii) regular meetings between the public and private providers (convened by the district health team) to discuss the referral system. Twenty clusters will be included in the study, randomized in the ratio of 1:1. A minimum of 319 sick children per cluster and the total number of sick children to be recruited from all clusters will be 8910; adjusting for a 10 % loss to follow up and possible withdrawal of private outlets. Discussion: The immediate sustainable impact will be appropriate treatment of sick children. The intervention is likely to impact on private sector practices since the scope of the services they provide will have expanded. The proposed study is also likely to have an impact on families as; i) they may appreciate the importance of timely referral on child illness management, ii) the cost savings related to reduced morbidity will be used by household to access other social services. The linkage between the private and public sectors will create a potential avenue for delivery of other public health interventions and improved working relations in the two sectors. Further, improved quality of services in the private sector will improve provider confidence and hopefully more clientelle to the private practices.