Validation of the key informant method to identify children with disabilities: methods and results from a pilot study in Bangladesh.

PURPOSE To assess whether the key informant method (KIM) is an effective method to identify children with disabling sensory or physical impairments, or epilepsy (tonic-clonic seizures), in a low-income setting. METHODS In one subdistrict each, the Key Informants (KIs) were trained to recognize children with visual impairment, hearing impairment, physical impairment and epilepsy, respectively. In the fifth subdistrict, the KIs were trained to recognize all four conditions. RESULTS Of the 2260 children identified by KIs, 1227 attended for examination (54%), of which 911 were diagnosed to have a disabling impairment (74%). KIM had a high sensitivity (average 98%) for case detection in all groups but specificity was lower (average 44%), particularly for hearing impairment. CONCLUSIONS KIs were able to identify children with epilepsy, sensory and physical impairments. KIM is an effective and low-cost method to identify children with disability in a low-income setting.