Part II: The Standard Treatment Guideline (STG)
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Standard Treatment Guidelines provide standardized guidance to health professionals on diagnosis and treatments. It provides invaluable assistance to practitioners especially those with lower skills or new in the field. STG are systematically developed statements to assist practitioners/prescribers in making decisions about appropriate treatment for specific clinical conditions. The statements contain information on: clinical conditions, diagnosis criteria, non- pharmacological, medicines of choice (and alternatives) for the medical condition, important prescribing information—dose, duration, contraindications, side effects, warnings, medicine interactions and the referral criteria.
The STGs should be updated regularly to reflect changes in accepted treatment strategies. The 2021 edition of STG have been updated to reflect new therapeutic options and to include new emerging diseases. In the development process, the use of evidence-based medicine was overemphasized and each chapter was revised by a Lead Reviewer, an expert on the specific disease condition. The STG has covered the priority disease conditions in the country arranged in twenty-six chapters namely:
- Emergency and Critical Care
- Anaesthesia
- Haematological Disease Conditions
- Notifiable Diseases
- Malaria
- HIV/AIDS
- TB and Leprosy
- Nervous Disease Conditions
- Respiratory Disease Conditions
- Gastrointestinal Disease Conditions
- Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Contraception
- Sexually Transmitted Infections
- Skin Disease and Allergic Reactions
- Eye Disease Conditions
- Oral and Dental Conditions
- Ear, Nose and Throat Diseases
- Musculoskeletal Disorders
- Trauma and Injuries
- Metabolic and Endocrine Disease Conditions
- Kidney and Urological Disorders
- Malignant Disease Conditions
- Mental Health Conditions
- Nutrition Disorders
- Poisoning
Note
- All medicines indicated for treatment of various diseases in the STG are listed in the NEMLIT.
- The referral criteria in the STG meant to refer the patient to the next level of care; with the fact that expertise to manage a patient/diagnosis capacity may lack at that level.