Impact of Supervision on Stock Management and Adherence to Treatment Guidelines: a Randomized Controlled Trial

Ensuring the availability of essential drugs and using them appropriately are crucial if limited resources for health care are to be used optimally. While training of health workers throughout Zimbabwe in drug management (including stock management and rational drug use) resulted in significant improvements in a variety of drug use indicators, these achievements could not be sustained, and a new strategy was introduced based on the supervision of primary health care providers. This was launched in 1995 with a training course in supervisory skills for district pharmacy staff. In order to evaluate the impact of the supervision and the effectiveness of the training program, adherence to standard treatment guidelines (STG) and stock management protocols was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial. [author’s description]