The mCME Project:Delivering Continuing Medical Education for Community Health Workers Via SMS Text Messages

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Medical Knowledge
• Interventions: Behavioral: Group 3 intervention daily SMS bullet point; Behavioral: Group 2 intervention daily SMS bullet point

• Registration Number: NCT02381743
• Lead Sponsor: Boston University

Brief Summary

Community health workers (CHWs) provide essential basic medical care to hundreds of millions of people across the globe. CHWs offer a myriad of services including community sanitation, breast feeding counseling, family planning, management of febrile children, and malaria control and prevention, to name but a few. In fact, CHWs are often the only source of primary health care available to some of the most disadvantaged populations in the world. However, to be effective, CHWs must be trained - and retrained - at regular intervals, and the costs for such trainings can be substantial. In the US, clinicians are required to stay current and maintain their competence through continuing medical education (CME). Increasingly, CME activities are delivered via internet-based, self-teaching modules. A typical example would be a set of topical readings followed by multiple-choice questions, with the answers, and CME credit, provided to the user upon satisfactory completion of the module. This content is typically delivered over the Internet. However, there is no intrinsic reason why this approach could not be adapted so that CME activities are delivered using standard cell phones via SMS text messaging. This would significantly expand professional training opportunities to a far greater range of CHWs than possible through computer/tablet/smart phone platforms, and would be particularly valuable in poorer countries with limited training budgets. In the mCME project, the investigators propose to test the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of a mobile phone-based CME delivery strategy among Vietnamese community-based physician assistants (CBPAs), a cadre of CHW mandated to provide primary health care to rural and disadvantaged populations. The investigators hypothesize that providing CME activities over a mobile platform will significantly improve their professional knowledge, and may also improve their job satisfaction and self-efficacy.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2015-03-03
• Study First Submitted QC: 2015-03-05
• Study First Posted: 2015-03-06
• Study Start: 2015-05
• Primary Completion: 2015-11
• Study Completion: 2015-11
• Status Verified: 2016-01
• Last Update Submitted: 2016-01-11
• Last Update Posted: 2016-01-12

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 638

Inclusion Criteria

1. Graduated from a CBPA training program
2. Possesses their own cell phone
3. Phone able to send/receive text messages
4. Aged 18 years or older

Exclusion Criteria

1. Unwilling to sign informed consent
2. Lives/operates in an area without cellular coverage
3. Unwilling to be randomized
4. Unwilling to adhere to study procedures

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Group 3	Group 3 intervention daily SMS bullet point	Receipt of a daily SMS text message describing various aspects of clinical practice, but phrased as multiple choice question
Group 2	Group 2 intervention daily SMS bullet point	Receipt of a daily SMS text message describing various aspects of clinical practice

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Medical knowledge (Score on medical knowledge exams)	6 months	Score on medical knowledge exams administered at baseline and at the end of six months of the intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Self efficacy (Score in likert scale)	6 months	Score in likert scale measuring self efficacy
Job satisfaction (Score on likert scale)	6 months	Score on likert scale measuring job satisfaction