The lack of comparable DA methods across represented countries is a major obstacle to implement comprehensive and joint nutrition-related programmes for surveillance, programme evaluation, research, and prevention. There is a need to develop new or adapt existing DA methods across countries by employing related research infrastructure that has been validated and standardized in other settings, with the view to standardizing methods for wider use.

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Background The current maternal mortality ratio in Uganda is 336 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Infant mortality is 43 deaths per 1000 live births, with 42% of the mortality occurring during the neonatal period. This might be related to a weak health system in the country. This study aimed at assessing the uptake of lifesaving services during pregnancy and childbirth in Hoima District, Uganda. Methods The study used a cross-sectional quantitative design among 691 women with a child under 5 years. Households were randomly sampled from a list of all the villages in the district with the ENA for SMART software using the EPI methodology. Pre-coded questionnaires uploaded in the Open Data Kit were used for data collection. The data was cleaned and analysed using MS Excel and SPSS software. Descriptive results are presented. Results Of the 55.1% women attending at least four antenatal care (ANC) visits, only 24.3% had the first ANC within the first trimester. Moreover, ANC services generally was of poor quality, with only 0.4% meeting all the requirements for quality of ANC service. The highest contributors to this poor quality included poor uptake of iron-folic acid (adherence 28.8%), the six-required birth preparedness and complication readiness items (13.2%), and recognition of the seven danger signs of pregnancy (3.0%). Adherence to the seven essential newborn care actions was very low (0.5%), mainly caused by three practices: initiating breastfeeding within 1 h (59.9%), lack of postnatal care within 24 h (20.1%), and failure to recognize the 6 danger signs of the newborn (2.4%). Only 11.1% of the males participated in all maternal and newborn care requirements, by encouraging women to seek healthcare (39.9%), accompanying them to healthcare (36.9%), and HIV counselling and support services (26.2%). Conclusion The study reveals poor maternal and newborn practices throughout the continuum of care, from ANC and skilled birth attendance to newborn care during childbirth. With such poor results, it is not surprising that Hoima is sixth of 10 districts that have the highest numbers of deaths due to maternal mortality in Uganda.

Objective: Establish the reliability of the scored Patient Generated-Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) in determining nutritional status among Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) naive HIV-infected adults. Methods: A descriptive, cross sectional study among outpatient medical clinics, in The AIDS Support Organization (TASO), Mulago Centre, Kampala, Uganda. The study group (n=217) consisted of male (n=60) and female (n=157) HIV patients (18-67 years). Purposive sampling was used. Anthropometry (weight, height, BMI), nutritional history (body weight, dietary intake, gastrointestinal symptoms, functional capacity and infections), and clinical status were assessed. Sensitivity and specificity of PG-SGA were determined using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. Data collection was done from April-May 2008. Results: Only 12% of the subjects were underweight and over half (58.2%) had normal weight. The PG-SGA had low sensitivity (69.2%) and specificity (57.1%) at categorizing the risk for malnutrition indicated by BMI< 18.5. Conclusion: There was a high prevalence of malnutrition among the study group. Overall, this study indicated the PG-SGA could not adequately discriminate between underweight and normal patients. The tool was not reliable enough for determining nutritional status in this population.