A health care professionals training needs assessment for oncology in Uganda

Abstract

Background Cancer incidence and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa are increasing and do account for significant premature death. The expertise of health care providers is critical to downstaging cancer at diagnosis and improving survival in low- and middle-income countries. We set out to determine the training needs of health care providers for a comprehensive oncology services package in selected hospitals in Uganda, in order to inform capacity development intervention to improve cancer outcomes in the East African region. Methods This was a cross-sectional survey using the WHO Hennessey-Hicks questionnaire to identify the training needs of health workers involved in cancer care, across 22 hospitals in Uganda. Data were captured in real time using the Open Data Kit platform from which the data was exported to Stata version 15 for analysis using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Somers-Delta. Results There were 199 respondent health professionals who were predominately female (146/199, 73.37%), with an average age of 38.97 years. There were 158/199 (79.40%) nurses, 24/199 (12.06%) medical doctors and 17/199 (8.54%) allied health professionals. Overall, the research and audit domain had the highest ranking for all the health workers (Somers-D = 0.60). The respondent’s level of education had a significant effect on the observed ranking ( P value = 0.03). Most of the continuing medical education (CME) topics suggested by the participants were in the clinical task-related category. Conclusion The “research and audit” domain was identified as the priority area for training interventions to improve oncology services in Uganda. There are opportunities for addressing the identified training needs with an expanded cancer CME programme content, peer support networks and tailored training for the individual health care provider.

Self-reported continuing professional development needs of medical laboratory professionals in Ghana

“…This similarity reflects the increased demand for total quality management within medical laboratories across Africa [ 21 – 23 ]. Contrary to the findings of the present study, healthcare professionals in Uganda cited research and audit as the domain with the largest training need [ 24 ] while health workers in the United Kingdom preferred topics that addressed anxiety and lack of confidence [ 25 ]. The training needs of health workers may vary by location.…”

A Study of Training Needs Assessment of Doctors and Nurses in a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Cross Sectional Study in Punjab, India.

“…Gaspard & Yang in their study identified that continuous Professional Education (CPE) had the highest average difference score, closely followed by research/audit activities, management/supervisory skills, clinical tasks, communication and teamwork, and administration (12). Similarly in a study conducted by Byamugisha et al among health care professional in Uganda "research and audit" domain was identified as the priority area for training interventions to improve oncology services (17). A study conducted in a Tertiary hospital in China concluded that nurses' scientific research participation and self-rated research ability were below the optimal despite that they had relatively high research-training needs.…”