Task shifting of frontline community health workers for cardiovascular risk reduction: design and rationale of a cluster randomised controlled trial (DISHA study) in India

摘要

Background Effective task-shifting interventions targeted at reducing the global cardiovascular disease (CVD) epidemic in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) are urgently needed. Methods DISHA is a cluster randomised controlled trial conducted across 10 sites (5 in phase 1 and 5 in phase 2) in India in 120 clusters. At each site, 12 clusters were randomly selected from a district. A cluster is defined as a small village with 250–300 households and well defined geographical boundaries. They were then randomly allocated to intervention and control clusters in a 1:1 allocation sequence. If any of the intervention and control clusters were Discussion Our study is the largest community based cluster randomised trial in low and middle-income country settings designed to test the effectiveness of ‘task shifting’ interventions involving frontline health workers for cardiovascular risk reduction. Trial registration CTRI/?2013/?10/?004049 . Registered 7 October 2013.