Establishing consensus among interprofessional faculty on a genderbased violence curriculum in medical schools in Nigeria: A Delphi study

Abstract

There is growing international consensus that health services need to respond to the needs of those experiencing abuse. [1] There is also an increasing recognition of the need to equip medical practitioners with the appropriate knowledge, attitudes and skills to care for victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). Concerns have been raised that faculty possibly neglect teaching of the topic, as it is not included in medical curricula. [2] It is therefore imperative to address this shortcoming in medical curricula, especially in low-income countries where traditions have supported and condoned levels of IPV. [3] Different specialised groups of physicians are needed to care for women who have experienced IPV, when managing complications linked to abuse. [3] Education about gender-based violence (GBV) in general offers a logical solution in addressing the problem of ignorance. [4] Education about violence has been integrated into medical schools, and is being taught by a variety of faculty in many high-income countries. [5,6] Evaluations show that training on GBV and IPV generally improves the knowledge, attitudes and skills of students and clinicians. [4] However, medical faculty in many middle-and low-income countries are apprehensive about the complexities of addressing the topic. Apart from concerns over content and training methods, there is also a lack of agreement on the faculty best positioned to offer such training. [7,8] Therefore these issues need consideration, to prepare a range of medical faculty to teach, serve and practise effectively in this area. The present study was conducted to obtain consensus among interprofessional stakeholders on the content, methods and faculty to involve in educating and training medical students on GBV in southwest Nigeria. The study also explored reasons why stakeholders thought the teaching was necessary; it identified the stage in the curriculum best suited to teach the topic, and how to assess the effectiveness of training. Methods Study design The Delphi technique [9] was used to obtain consensus among experts on issues relating to the design of a GBV curriculum. Three rounds Background. Gender-based violence (GBV), as a topic of medical study and practice, is an integral component of medical education in many developed countries. There is an increasing need to equip medical practitioners with appropriate knowledge, attitudes and skills to care for victims of GBV. Objectives. To obtain consensus among stakeholders on content, the members of faculty who should teach the subject and the methods of training relating to GBV curricula in three medical schools in southwest Nigeria. Methods. Three rounds of the Delphi technique involving 52 experts from among academics, medical practitioners, government and non-governmental organisations were conducted. The first round (RD 1) was open-ended, while subsequent rounds were structured. Consensus was defined as a gathering around mean (>3.5) responses with minimal divergence (standard deviation (SD) <1.5) to the RD 2 questionnai...

Reflecting on our society?

“…Using the Delphi technique, Fawole et al [7] sought to obtain consensus from teachers on a gender-based violence curriculum for medical schools in Nigeria. The study identified topics for inclusion, level of study at which the curriculum should be taught, methods of teaching and who should teach.…”