Communities’ views, attitudes and recommendations on community-based education of undergraduate Health Sciences students in South Africa: A qualitative study

Abstract

BackgroundMedical and Health Sciences students in South Africa undertake community-based education (CBE). Health professionals based at host sites are jointly responsible for training of these students in conjunction with university staff. This study explored the communities’ views, attitudes and recommendations regarding CBE undertaken by these students, in order to improve the quality of community support for these programmes.MethodA qualitative descriptive study was conducted at CBE placement sites of students from the Faculties of Health Sciences of the University of Limpopo (UL), University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and University of the Western Cape (UWC) during 2010 and 2011. Focus group discussions were held with site facilitators, community leaders and patients, and interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and translated into English where necessary. Data were analysed using NVivo (version 9).FindingsCBE was seen to benefit communities, students and host institutions as there was perceived improvement of service delivery, better referral to hospitals and reduction of workloads on site staff. CBE was also seen as having potential for recruiting professionals who have better orientation to the area, and for motivating school pupils for a career in health sciences. Students acquired practical skills and gained confidence and experience. Challenges included poor communication between universities and host sites, burden of student teaching on site facilitators, cultural and religious sensitivity of students and language barriers.ConclusionThe study revealed that communities have an important role to play in the CBE of future health care professionals. CBE activities could be better organised and managed through formalised partnerships.

Strengths and challenges of community-based clinical training as viewed by academics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

“…[11] This study showed that CBE could create learning opportunities for students to acquire these attributes. These findings were similar to those of Mabuza et al, [16] who indicated that the main focus of CBE was the learning of practical skills, professional behaviour and relating theory to practice. However, Ferris and O'Flynn [17] argue that for CBE to be more meaningful, students should not be left at these sites to acquire practical skills only; they should be given opportunities to self-reflect and self-assess, which can contribute to lifelong learning.…”

Attitudes toward Community - based training and internship of Nursing students and professors: a qualitative study

“…The results were in line with those of similar studies. (10) As the results showed, the main category of "preservation and promotion of health" had two sub-categories: "education" and "follow up and referral". In the provision of home care in remote areas, students played an important instructive role and the people benefited from the instruction provided by students and professors.…”

Community-based pedagogy of nursing in developing countries: An integrative review

“…[8,[12][13][14] The main settings included in the studies were the university, the community, and the primary schools which were involved in the community-based programs.…”

“…Such preparation could help students, especially those without experience of rural life, to make the most of their placement opportunity. The evaluation of community programs [6,13,36] revealed a number of challenges which had similarities regardless of geographical location, participants, and political, socio-cultural and economic status.…”

“…[13] The presence of educator's may colour the learning experiences of the students and avert challenges that students commonly face in this new learning environment. In addition, continuous feedback from academics 'on the ground' enables the desired outcomes to be achieved.…”