Assessment of a hands-on method for FAMACHA© system training.

Abstract The FAMACHA © system is a method for selective anthelmintic treatment comprising early detection of haemonchosis in sheep and goats. In order to evaluate the hands-on training methodology and the learning level of the participants, we analyzed data from 30 training events involving 47 training classes conducted in the State of Parana, Brazil, from July/2009 to May/2011, during which period a total of 1004 participants did 20,080 FAMACHA © classifications. In the practical training sessions, each participant individually evaluated 20 animals with known haematocrit values. Every participant per training event was given a unique number, whereupon each of the animals in a given event was FAMACHA © classified by all the trainees involved, in the same trainee number sequence. After each consecutive animal had been evaluated by every one of the participants, its haematocrit and corresponding FAMACHA © category were announced before the next animal was presented. The number of persons in training, which ranged from 5 to 39 per session, did not significantly affect the average error of the groups of participants involved ( p  > 0.05). The average error in the classification of the first animal on a scale with a perfect score of zero was 2.5, significantly greater than the error of 0.56 of the twentieth one ( p p p  > 0.05). Similarly, the average errors in FAMACHA © classification were not significantly influenced by the occupation or gender of the participants, nor whether there were animals in all five FAMACHA © categories or only in categories 1, 2, 3 and 4 per training event ( p  > 0.05).