Assessing diagnostic accuracy of haemoglobin colour scale in real-life setting

The study was undertaken to determine diagnostic accuracy of haemoglobin colour scale (hcs) in hands of village-based community health workers (chws) in real-life community setting in india. participants (501 women) were randomly selected from 8 villages belonging to a project area of sewa-rural,a voluntary organization located in india. after receiving a brief training,chws and a research assistant obtained haemoglobin readings using hcs and hemo™ (reference) respectively. sensitivity,specificity,positive and negative predictive-values,and likelihood ratios were calculated. bland-altman plot was constructed. mean haemoglobin value,using hcs and hemo™ were 11.02 g/dl (ci 10.9-11.2) and 11.07 g/dl (ci 10.9-11.2) respectively. mean difference between haemoglobin readings was 0.95 g/dl. sensitivity of hcs was 0.74 (ci 0.65-0.81) and 0.84 (ci 0.8-0.87) whereas specificity was 0.84 (ci:0.51-0.98) and 0.99 (ci:0.97- 0.99) using haemoglobin cutoff limits of 10 g/dl and 7 g/dl respectively. chws can accurately diagnose severe and moderately-severe anaemia by using hcs in real-life field condition after a brief training. © international centre for diarrhoeal.