Division of Global Health Protection, Center for Global Health, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Center for Public Health Emergency Management, Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
BMC Public Health. 2022 May 10;22(1):931. doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-13326-2.
The Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP)-Frontline is a three-month in-service training aimed at improving surveillance officers' capacity to collect, analyze, and interpret surveillance data, and respond to health emergencies. We evaluated the effectiveness of the FETP-Frontline which was introduced in Ethiopia in 2016.
We conducted a comparative, randomized cross-sectional study to assess surveillance-related knowledge, skills, and performance among trained and untrained officers using a structured questionnaire and observation checklist. We compared the knowledge, skills, and performance scores of trained and untrained officers using the Fisher's Exact test, chi-square test, and t-test at p-value < 0.05 for statistical significance.
We conducted the study among 74 trained and 76 untrained surveillance officers. About three-quarters of all participants were male, and the average age was 34 (± 8.6) years. Completeness and timeliness of surveillance reports were significantly higher among trained than untrained surveillance officers. The trained officers were more likely to have produced epidemiologic bulletins (55% vs 33%), conducted active surveillance six months before the survey (88% vs 72%), provided surveillance training (88% vs 65%), conducted strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis (55% vs 17%), and utilized Microsoft Excel to manage surveillance data (87% vs 47%). We also observed improved surveillance officers' perceived skills and knowledge, and the availability and quality of surveillance formats and reports among the trained group.
FETP-Frontline trained surveillance officers demonstrated better knowledge, skills, and performance in most surveillance activities compared to the untrained officers. FETP-Frontline can address competency gaps among district surveillance officers in Ethiopia and other countries. Scaling up the program to cover unreached districts can enable achieving the human resource development core capacity requirement of the International Health Regulations 2005.
现场流行病学培训项目（FETP）-前线是一项为期三个月的在职培训，旨在提高监测官员收集、分析和解释监测数据以及应对突发卫生事件的能力。我们评估了 2016 年在埃塞俄比亚引入的 FETP-前线的有效性。
我们采用了一种比较性、随机的横断面研究方法，使用结构化问卷和观察清单评估了经过培训和未经培训的官员在监测相关知识、技能和表现方面的情况。我们使用 Fisher 精确检验、卡方检验和 t 检验比较了经过培训和未经培训的官员在知识、技能和表现方面的得分，p 值<0.05 表示具有统计学意义。
我们在 74 名经过培训和 76 名未经培训的监测官员中进行了这项研究。大约四分之三的参与者是男性，平均年龄为 34（±8.6）岁。监测报告的完整性和及时性在经过培训的监测官员中明显更高。与未经培训的监测官员相比，经过培训的监测官员更有可能制作流行病学公报（55%对 33%）、在调查前六个月进行主动监测（88%对 72%）、提供监测培训（88%对 65%）、进行强弱分析（SWOT 分析）（55%对 17%）以及利用 Microsoft Excel 管理监测数据（87%对 47%）。我们还观察到经过培训的监测官员在监测活动方面的技能和知识得到了提高，监测格式和报告的可用性和质量也得到了提高。
FETP-前线培训的监测官员在大多数监测活动中表现出了更好的知识、技能和表现，与未经培训的监测官员相比。FETP-前线可以解决埃塞俄比亚和其他国家地区监测官员的能力差距问题。扩大该项目的覆盖范围，以覆盖未覆盖的地区，可以实现《国际卫生条例 2005》的人力资源开发核心能力要求。
