Pilot Audit of Trichiasis Surgery Outcomes Using a Mobile App in the Republic of Chad.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to assess the feasibility of a mobile data collection app for use in trichiasis surgical audits in the Melfi and Mangalme districts of the Guera region of the Republic of Chad and to perform a cost analysis to determine if the auditing mechanism could be implemented nationally. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients who underwent trichiasis surgery 6 months prior and who had follow-up 7-14 days after surgery were included in the study. Each surgeon had a sample of 20% of operated eyelids; nine surgeons with data for ≥20 eyelids were included. A trichiasis recurrence rate of ≥25% suggested that the surgeon needed retraining. Smartphones captured data using the data collection app, which transmitted data to an online server. Direct costs and supervision costs were collated and summed. RESULTS: There were 916 eyelids operated on; 170 patients (269 eyelids, 29% follow-up rate) participated in the audit. Twenty participants (11.8%) had recurrence. The mean recurrence rate among surgeons was 8.3% (standard deviation: 0.07%; range: 0%-17.9%). None had a recurrence rate of ≥25%; thus, no retraining was necessary. The total cost of the audit was US$15,111.25 ($12,882.28 in direct costs and $2,228.97 in supervision costs). CONCLUSIONS: The simple, easy-to-use, and low-cost mobile auditing mechanism is a practical solution for conducting surgical audits in remote and resource-limited settings and is undergoing national scale-up by the Chadian trachoma elimination program.

Prevalence of trachoma in the Republic of Chad: results of 41 population-based surveys.

PURPOSE: To estimate the prevalence of trachoma in suspected-endemic areas of Chad, and thereby determine whether trachoma is a public health problem requiring intervention. METHODS: We divided the suspected-endemic population living in secure districts into 46 evaluation units (EUs), and used the standardized methodologies of the Global Trachoma Mapping Project. A two-stage cluster-sampling procedure was adopted. In each EU, the goal was to examine at least 1019 children aged 1-9 years by recruiting 649 households; all consenting residents aged ≥ 1 year living in those households were examined. Each participant was examined for trachomatous inflammation-follicular (TF), trachomatous inflammation-intense (TI), and trichiasis. RESULTS: Two EUs had data that could not be validated, and were excluded from the analysis. GPS data for three other pairs of EUs suggested that EU divisions were inaccurate; data for each pair were combined within the pair. In the 41 resulting EUs, 29,924 households in 967 clusters were visited, and 104,584 people were examined. The age-adjusted EU-level prevalence of TF in 1-9-year-olds ranged from 0.0% to 23.3%, and the age- and gender-adjusted EU-level prevalence of trichiasis in ≥ 15-year-olds ranged from 0.02% to 1.3%. TF was above the WHO elimination threshold in 16 EUs (39%) and trichiasis was above the WHO elimination threshold in 29 EUs (71%). Women had a higher prevalence of trichiasis than did men in 31 EUs (76%). A higher ratio of trichiasis prevalence in women to trichiasis prevalence in men was associated (p = 0.03) with a higher prevalence of trichiasis at EU level. CONCLUSION: Public health-level interventions against trachoma are needed in Chad. Over 10,000 people need management of their trichiasis; women account for about two-thirds of this total. The association between a higher ratio of trichiasis prevalence in women to that in men with higher overall trichiasis prevalence needs further investigation.