JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In Mali, a lack of qualified human resources (HR) in primary health care (PHC) and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is one of the greatest barriers to the population's access to standard health services. Frontline professional trainings require to be strengthened to respond to the needs of the population, particularly those of women and girls. Training must be conducted using an interdisciplinary and adapted approach to promote gender equality.

Objective:

To identify the SRHR training needs among community, educational actors and primary health care providers.

Methods:

Convergent mixed methods research was adopted, using two methods: (1) A quantitative method, through a cross-sectional analytical survey conducted at the community level with university community health centers (CSCom-U) users and adolescents in CSCom-U health areas, as well as at the health education institution and community health centers levels with teachers, students and interdisciplinary professional groups within the CSCom-U and district hospital maternity. Descriptive and inferential analyses will be conducted to process quantitative data. Note that this research is at the stage of data analysis and interpretation. (2) A qualitative method, based on three sources of data (focus groups, individual semi-structured interviews, document analysis) which involved the same targets as the quantitative component, with additional community actors such as Community Health Associations (ASACO) and Women's Service User Communities. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data using a mixed deductive and inductive method will be performed.

Results:

Field data collection took place from March to April 2022. Quantitative data from 3,153 participants – are being analyzed using SPSS. Qualitative data from 11 interviews and 27 focus groups were processed with QDA Miner. Data analysis is still ongoing.

Conclusions:

This study will provide a better understanding of adolescents and SRHR users services needs in terms of health services availability and quality and SRHR knowledge, issues related to student training quality, the level of adequacy between the training offered and the actual needs of the service recipients and the level of preparation and ability of teachers to provide quality teaching taking gender equality into account. The recommendations drawn from this assessment will propose concrete actions to improve women and girls' health services provided by professionals, and to better adapt the future health professionals’ profiles to the needs of communities, and particularly to those of women and girls.