Continuing professional development challenges in a rural setting : A mixed-methods study

© 2022. The Author(s)..

INTRODUCTION: Health professionals in rural settings encounter a wide range of medical conditions requiring broad knowledge for their clinical practice. This creates the need for ongoing continuing professional development (CPD). In this study, we explored the barriers that health professionals in a rural healthcare context faced participating in CPD activities and their preferences regarding educational strategies to overcome these challenges.

METHODS: This mixed-methods (exploratory sequential) study in a community hospital in rural Mexico includes 22 interviews, 3 focus groups, 40 observational hours, and a questionnaire of healthcare staff.

RESULTS: Despite low engagement with CPD activities (67% not motivated), all participants expressed interest and acknowledged the importance of learning for their practice. Barriers to participating include a disparity between strategies used (lecture-based) and their desire for practical learning, institutional barriers (poor leadership engagement, procedural flaws, and lack of resources), and collaboration barriers (adverse interprofessional education environment, ineffective teamwork, and poor communication). Additional barriers identified were inconvenient scheduling of sessions (75%), inadequate classrooms (65%), high workload (60%), ineffective speakers (60%), and boring sessions (55%). Participants' preferred learning strategies highlighted activities relevant to their daily clinical activities (practical workshops, simulations, and case analysis). The questionnaire had an 18% response rate.

DISCUSSION: The barriers to CPD in this rural setting are multifactorial and diverse. A strong interest to engage in context-specific active learning strategies highlighted the need for leadership to prioritize interprofessional education, teamwork, and communication to enhance CPD and patient care. These results could inform efforts to strengthen CPD in other rural contexts.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:11

Enthalten in:

Perspectives on medical education - 11(2022), 5 vom: 09. Okt., Seite 273-280

Sprache:

Englisch

Weiterer Titel:

Kontinuierliche berufliche Entwicklungsherausforderungen in einer ländlichen Umgebung: Eine Mixed-Methods-Studie

Beteiligte Personen:

Campos-Zamora, Melissa [VerfasserIn]
Gilbert, Hannah [VerfasserIn]
Esparza-Perez, Ramiro I [VerfasserIn]
Sanchez-Mendiola, Melchor [VerfasserIn]
Gardner, Roxane [VerfasserIn]
Richards, Jeremy B [VerfasserIn]
Lumbreras-Marquez, Mario I [VerfasserIn]
Dobiesz, Valerie A [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Continuing professional development
Global health
Health profession education
Journal Article
Observational Study
Rural health

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 21.10.2022

Date Revised 07.02.2023

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1007/s40037-022-00718-8

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM344630978