Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Cochrane South Africa (CSA), as a Geographic centre, provides training on conducting and disseminating high-quality Cochrane reviews to inform healthcare decisions relevant to their context. Ensuring equitable access to training in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa remains challenging, with the small CSA team unable to match the demand for face-to-face training. We thus developed a strategy to address inequity in access to Cochrane training in South Africa and the region.
Objectives: To describe CSA’s approach to increasing access to Cochrane training in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods: Two approaches were implemented. We identified and reached out to health sciences faculties in ‘historically disadvantaged institutions’ (HDIs), labelled so due to previous racial barriers to accessing adequate resources. We aimed to implement an introductory workshop on the principles of evidence-based healthcare. Each workshop was evaluated through a post-workshop written survey. We also shifted from face-to-face monthly methods training to monthly webinars on a variety of methods topics directed at novice authors and evidence users including the experienced ones. The webinars were evaluated through an online survey in December 2019.
Results: Of the six HDIs contacted, we delivered three workshops in 2019, with 82 health sciences’ post-graduates and practitioners attending (Table 1). Of these, 67 completed evaluations, all gave positive feedback (Table 2). Due to logistical matters, the remaining three HDIs postponed the workshops to the following year.
Nine webinars were presented in 2019 to about 450 delegates in sub-Saharan Africa. On average 42% of confirmed their attendance actually attended. Each Webinar had a mean of 46 participants from at least 8 African countries. The response rate to the survey was 6% (27/450). Most participants were involved with evidence synthesis and noted that the webinars were important resources that allowed them to do their work using newly learnt skills (Table 3).
Conclusions: CSA as a regional Centre expanded the reach of its training through specific targeted approaches, to combat the historical inequities that still exist in attaining knowledge in the region. This process is in its infancy. Careful evaluation of these efforts will continue to be carried out. This will allows us to adapt our approaches to ensure a greater reach and improved attendance rate.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: As a Regional Centre to strive to reach out and share the importance of Cochrane methods and reviews for decision-making. Through the current training methods, CSA has attempted to ensure that healthcare consumers remain involved so that they may provide the best necessary care to patients.
Objectives: To describe CSA’s approach to increasing access to Cochrane training in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
Methods: Two approaches were implemented. We identified and reached out to health sciences faculties in ‘historically disadvantaged institutions’ (HDIs), labelled so due to previous racial barriers to accessing adequate resources. We aimed to implement an introductory workshop on the principles of evidence-based healthcare. Each workshop was evaluated through a post-workshop written survey. We also shifted from face-to-face monthly methods training to monthly webinars on a variety of methods topics directed at novice authors and evidence users including the experienced ones. The webinars were evaluated through an online survey in December 2019.
Results: Of the six HDIs contacted, we delivered three workshops in 2019, with 82 health sciences’ post-graduates and practitioners attending (Table 1). Of these, 67 completed evaluations, all gave positive feedback (Table 2). Due to logistical matters, the remaining three HDIs postponed the workshops to the following year.
Nine webinars were presented in 2019 to about 450 delegates in sub-Saharan Africa. On average 42% of confirmed their attendance actually attended. Each Webinar had a mean of 46 participants from at least 8 African countries. The response rate to the survey was 6% (27/450). Most participants were involved with evidence synthesis and noted that the webinars were important resources that allowed them to do their work using newly learnt skills (Table 3).
Conclusions: CSA as a regional Centre expanded the reach of its training through specific targeted approaches, to combat the historical inequities that still exist in attaining knowledge in the region. This process is in its infancy. Careful evaluation of these efforts will continue to be carried out. This will allows us to adapt our approaches to ensure a greater reach and improved attendance rate.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: As a Regional Centre to strive to reach out and share the importance of Cochrane methods and reviews for decision-making. Through the current training methods, CSA has attempted to ensure that healthcare consumers remain involved so that they may provide the best necessary care to patients.