Master of Public Health - MPH / Background: As South Africa’s HIV programme increases in size, increasingly complex
HIV/TB cases occur that are often beyond the clinical scope of primary health care clinicians.
In the Eastern Cape (EC) province, health facilities are geographically widespread, with a
discrepancy of specialist availability outside of academic/tertiary institutions. The use of
WhatsApp, a Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) application, could facilitate learning and
mentoring of primary healthcare clinicians in peripheral facilities. The aim of this study is to
describe this app and its use as an alternative learning tool to improve clinician access to
specialized management of complicated HIV/TB cases, as part of Continuing Medical
Education (CME).
Method: A an observational, descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among a group
of clinicians from the EC province that formed part of a Wits RHI WhatsApp HIV/TB
clinical discussion group from January 2016 to July 2017. Data was collected using a
structured anonymous internet questionnaire, distributed to the clinicians that formed part of
the WhatsApp group, informed consent being obtained from participants prior to completion.
Data was analysed with Epi Info, using descriptive and analytic statistics. Frequency
distributions and cross tabulations were generated and bi-variate analysis was done to
determine significant associations between relevant variables.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/6696 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Woods, Joana Francisca |
| Contributors | Knight, Lucia |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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