Effectiveness of Designing and Implementing Community-Based Intervention on Leprosy Healthcare Services in High-Burden Districts in Ethiopia

Inadequate contact tracing poses significant challenges to leprosy case notification and treatment linkage activities in high-burden districts. This study aimed to design and implement community-based interventions to enhance leprosy case notification, contact tracing, and treatment linkage services in Ethiopia. A quasi-experimental study design was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Dickoff's survey list guided the intervention design. A modified checklist served as a data collection tool to gather baseline and end-point data from records and reports of selected healthcare facilities in high-burden districts. Data were entered and analysed using R programming R x64 3.6.1 packages by importing from Excel 2016. The average intervention effect was estimated through propensity score matching analysis. A p-value < 0.05 indicated statistical significance. The propensity score matching analysis showed that the implemented community-based intervention improved case notification for females affected by leprosy (Crud Odd Ratio [COR] (95% CI) = 3.8(1.8, 8.5)), treatment linkage among individuals with multi-bacillary leprosy (COR (95% CI) = 26.7(8.3, 125.8)), and contact tracing services (COR (95% CI) = 2(1.10, 3.8)) compared to healthcare facilities that did not receive the intervention. Therefore, the developed community-based intervention enhanced leprosy case notification, contact tracing, and treatment linkage activities at healthcare facilities in high-leprosy burden districts. The findings of this study will inform policymakers to incorporate these intervention activities into national guidelines to strengthen leprosy control in settings with a high burden of the disease.