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RF and RHD Flipchart Cover Art

Reach has developed three patient and community education flipcharts designed to enable health workers to communicate with their community about rheumatic fever (RF)/ rheumatic heart disease (RHD).

The first, Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease, is an introductory flipchart, aimed at patients who are newly diagnosed with RF or RHD. It outlines the key information that patients, and their families need to know about managing the disease. It also includes a small section for women of reproductive age with RF/RHD.

The second flipchart, Rheumatic Heart Disease and Pregnancy, includes comprehensive information about managing pregnancy and RHD. It begins with an educational section for health workers which covers important pre- and post-natal information, followed by the flipchart which is used with patients.

The Community Awareness flipchart is designed for community and primary care providers to use with at-risk communities. Recognizing that awareness of the disease in communities is often low, this flipchart aims to support prevention and early diagnosis by increasing community knowledge and awareness of the risk of untreated sore throat and of the signs and symptoms of RF.

How it Works
For each topic, there is a page for the health worker and a corresponding page for the patient. The health worker page shows in dot points the key messages to teach the patient. The patient page shows pictures that illustrate the information being explained.

Health Worker Page

Corresponding Patient Page

Further Details
We would like to thank Edward’s Lifescience Every Heartbeat Matters Initiative for their support in developing and piloting these resources.

All three flipcharts were assessed by our Community Advisory Network prior to finalisation and are being piloted in Montes Claros, Brazil. They are currently available in English and Portuguese (Brazil), with translation into other languages underway.

If you think one or more of these flipcharts will be useful for your community, please feel free to get in touch with us or navigate to our resources tab for more information.

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