Impact of a provider training program on the treatment of children with autism spectrum disorder at psychosocial care units in Brazil

Abstract

Objective: To develop, implement, and verify the impact of a training program for health care providers working with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in psychosocial care centers for children and adolescents (Centro de Atenc¸ão Psicossocial à Infância e à Adolescência -CAPSi) in São Paulo, Brazil. Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted with 14 professionals from four CAPSi units. The training program consisted of six phases: 1) pre-intervention observation; 2) meeting with staff to assess the main needs of the training program; 3) developing materials for training and evaluation; 4) meetings to discuss program implementation; 5) a final meeting for case discussion and evaluation; and 6) distance supervision. Three measures were used to evaluate the training program: i) the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) questionnaire; ii) videos containing questions designed to assess program comprehension; and iii) a satisfaction survey. Results: Thirteen videos were produced to as visual aids for use during the training program, and a further 26 videos were developed to evaluate it. The program was well evaluated by the participants. The video responses and KAP questionnaire scores suggest that staff knowledge and attitudes improved after training. Conclusion: The positive findings of this study suggest that the tested training program is feasible for use with multidisciplinary teams working in the CAPSi environment.

Evaluation of a consulting training course for international development assistance for health

“…This may be explained by the fact that the investigation was conducted within a week after the training and it was difficult for participants to immediately apply the acquired knowledge and skills to their work. This is similar to results found by Silva et al [ 44 ]. Besides, most of participants were new to the field of DAH making them difficult to apply knowledge and skills proficiently.…”

Profile of Service Use and Barriers to Access to Care among Brazilian Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Despite these high costs, non-treatment is known to lead to even higher costs, as well as more detrimental short and long-term consequences for the individual and society that warrant the provision of comprehensive assistance to this population. The provision of a greater number of professionals in the public health system trained in evidence-based treatments would help to remove barriers to access to care for individuals with ASD [ 5 ].…”

Age of autism diagnosis in Latin American and Caribbean countries

“…Unfortunately, these providers are generally not adequately equipped to detect and assist families of children with mental health conditions such as ASD (Brookman-Frazee et al, 2012; Carbone, 2013; Espinola-Nadurille et al, 2010; Paula et al, 2020). In addition to the limited ASD-specific training, there is also limited collaboration among PCPs and specialists (Bordini et al, 2015; Durkin et al, 2015; Kohn et al, 2018; Montiel-Nava et al, 2017; Paula et al, 2012; Silva et al, 2018). This is problematic, given that when properly trained, PCPs are six times more likely to refer suspected ASD cases to the needed specialized treatment (Bordini et al, 2015).…”