[Analysis of demands of African students for China-Africa malaria prevention training].

OBJECTIVE

To understand the demands of African students on the China-Africa malaria prevention training programs as well as explore further suggestions on the student selection and course content design.

METHODS

A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted, and all the students who attended in the malaria prevention training courses in 2014 and 2015 were included. The Chi-square test was conducted to analyse the correlations between professional backgrounds, work statues and training needs.

RESULTS

A total of 161 individuals were sampled eventually. These participants were trained in either English (58.4%) or French (41.6%). Most of the participants were male (69.3%), the major of them were mainly clinical technology specialty (40.0%), and most of them worked in malaria area within 10 years (56.4%). Moreover, 48.2% of the participants used more than 76% of total work time on malaria control, and more than 80% worked in national or provincial/municipal level. The working areas of these participants were focused on clinical field (41.4%) and official field (29.9%), and only a few of them were from research positions (11.9%). The most needed course content in malaria training was strategy and epidemiology knowledge for malaria prevention and control (65.5%), while clinical workers were most needed to be trained (39.2%). The participants who came from French speaking countries preferred strategy training ( = 12.528, < 0.01), and those worked in the national level were aslo more likely to choose strategies training course ( = 10.508, < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Currently, the China-Africa malaria prevention training programs could basically satisfy African students'needs. However, more aimed courses should be designed according to their professional backgrounds, national situation, work experiences on malaria control, and institutional levels.