Botswana University of Pennsylvania Partnership, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Telemed J E Health. 2012 Sep;18(7):565-9. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2011.0200. Epub 2012 Jul 30.
Healthcare workers in Africa managing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients often receive inadequate HIV-specific medical education. The acceptability and feasibility of Web-based distance learning tools to enhance HIV training in Africa have not been extensively evaluated.
In this prospective observational study, we assessed the feasibility of Web-conferencing to deliver HIV-specific medical training to clinicians supporting HIV care and treatment across 12 Sub-Saharan African countries over a 10-month period. Webinar attendance, technical quality, and participant satisfaction were measured for each Webinar. Demographic details about participants were recorded.
Attendance increased from 40 participants in Month 1 to over 160 in Month 10. Thirty-six percent of participants were physicians, and 21% were in allied health professions. A mean of 95% of respondents found the content to be relevant. Participants reported that the opportunity to interact with HIV clinicians from other countries and expert teaching from leading scientists were major reasons for attendance. Audio quality was variable across countries and over time. Barriers to attendance included lack of information technology (IT) literacy and Internet connectivity.
This analysis demonstrates that Webinars are feasible and acceptable to support HIV training. Significant impediments to scale up in use of Web-conferencing for HIV education in resource-limited settings include lack of IT hardware and limited IT literacy. Strengthening IT capacity and Internet infrastructure is necessary to support expanded use of Webinars as a tool for continuing HIV education.
在非洲管理感染人类免疫缺陷病毒（HIV）患者的医疗工作者通常接受的 HIV 专业医学教育不足。尚未广泛评估基于网络的远程学习工具在增强非洲 HIV 培训方面的可接受性和可行性。
在这项前瞻性观察研究中，我们评估了通过网络会议向支持 HIV 护理和治疗的临床医生提供 HIV 特定医学培训的可行性，该研究在 10 个月内跨越了 12 个撒哈拉以南非洲国家。我们对每次网络研讨会的参会情况、技术质量和参与者满意度进行了评估。记录了参与者的人口统计学细节。
参会人数从第 1 个月的 40 人增加到第 10 个月的 160 多人。36%的参与者是医生，21%的参与者从事辅助卫生专业。平均有 95%的受访者认为内容相关。参与者报告说，与来自其他国家的 HIV 临床医生互动以及与领先科学家进行教学是他们参加的主要原因。音频质量在不同国家和不同时间有所不同。参会的障碍包括信息技术（IT）素养和互联网连接不足。
本分析表明，网络研讨会是可行且可接受的，可以支持 HIV 培训。在资源有限的环境中，使用网络会议进行 HIV 教育的主要障碍包括缺乏 IT 硬件和有限的 IT 素养。加强 IT 能力和互联网基础设施对于支持网络研讨会作为继续 HIV 教育的工具的广泛使用是必要的。
