Capacity building in Evidence Based Child Health: six years’ experience

Tags: Poster
Singh M1, Jaiswal N1, Chauhan A1, Pradhan P1, Singh M1, Agarwal A1, Mathew J1, Malhotra S1, Shafiq N1, Dutta S1
1Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research

Background:

India has seen a paradigm shift in the process of guidelines and policy formulations. More guidelines are now making use of the evidence than relying alone on the expert opinions and consensus. While the change was aborning, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi commissioned a Centre for Advanced Research in Evidence-Based Child Health. The centre was based at Department of Pediatrics, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.

Objectives:

To build capacity, conduct SRs and promote practise and training of evidence-based health care in children

Methods:

Short courses on ‘How to practise & How to teach evidence-based child health’ and workshops on “Protocol development and Review completion” were conducted at various sites in North and North-eastern parts of the country. The short courses and workshops followed a standard pre-designed module that included pre-tests and post-tests with similar questions during each course to evaluate the knowledge of evidence-based child health. Short courses included lectures followed by small group interactive sessions on critical appraisal of randomized controlled trials, diagnostic test accuracy and conduct of SRs. The short courses and workshops were free for the participants

Results:

The phase 1 of the Centre for advanced research was from March 2012 to March 2018. During the 6 years period 50 workshops and short courses were conducted at various medical colleges in North India as well as North East India. Over 1500 health care professionals including clinicians, researchers, paramedics and nurses were trained and sensitized to the principles of evidence-based medicine and conduct of systematic reviews. The pre-test and post test scores were compared and post test scores for the participants were always high showing significant gain in knowledge. The participants trained through these short courses and workshops have been a part of 40 systematic reviews of which 21 got published in peer reviewed national and international journals. Over 24 high quality systematic reviews including Cochrane reviews and 11 of them have been published in peer-reviewed national and international journals. The systematic were also acknowledged by National Technical Advisory Group for Immunization (NTAGI) and were discussed in the policy meetings.

Conclusions:

The six years of Centre for Advanced Research provided significant contribution towards capacity building of healthcare professionals in evidence-based child health and also led to the inclination towards conducting and publishing systematic reviews. The Centre for Advanced research in Evidence Based Child Health has now started its second phase with additional responsibilities.