In developing countries, most deaths in very ill babies and children who seek care in healthcare facilities happen within 48 hours of being seen. Currently, a number of emergency care courses, adapted from developed countries are being promoted in developing countries as a means to improving the quality of care provided to seriously ill newborns or children. Whether these courses result in improvement in health workers’ ability to provide appropriate care remains unclear.
Although the results from the two included studies showed that emergency care training could be followed by improvement in health workers’ practices, because of the small number of studies, differences in the training courses, and weaknesses in the study methods, it is not possible to conclude that in general such in-service training improves health worker practices when they are faced with a seriously ill child. Further well-conducted studies are therefore needed to provide reliable evidence on what such courses achieve. To guide decisions regarding which interventions to invest in, such studies should also collect data on resources used and costs of training interventions.