Global health partnership for student peer-to-peer psychiatry e-learning: Lessons learned

Abstract

BackgroundGlobal ‘twinning’ relationships between healthcare organizations and institutions in low and high-resource settings have created growing opportunities for e-health partnerships which capitalize upon expanding information technology resources worldwide. E-learning approaches to medical education are increasingly popular but remain under-investigated, whilst a new emphasis on global health teaching has coincided with university budget cuts in many high income countries.ResultsKing’s Somaliland Partnership (KSP) is a paired institutional partnership health link, supported by Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET), which works to strengthen the healthcare system and improve access to care through mutual exchange of skills, knowledge and experience between Somaliland and King’s Health Partners, UK. Aqoon, meaning knowledge in Somali, is a peer-to-peer global mental health e-learning partnership between medical students at King’s College London (KCL) and Hargeisa and Amoud Universities, Somaliland. It aims to extend the benefits of KSP’s cross-cultural and global mental health education work to medical students and has reported positive results, including improved attitudes towards psychiatry in Somaliland students.ConclusionsThe process of devising, piloting, evaluating, refining, implementing, re-evaluating and again refining the Aqoon model has identified important barriers to successful partnership. This article describes lessons learned during this process, sharing principles and recommendations for readers wishing to expand their own global health link beyond qualified clinicians, to the healthcare professionals of the future.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12992-016-0221-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Problem-based, peer-to-peer global mental health e-learning between the UK and Somaliland: a pilot study

“…Participants completed the Attitudes Toward Psychiatry (ATP-30) questionnaires,30 pre-Aqoon and post-Aqoon, which was previously used in this setting 27. It presents 30 attitudinal statements about psychiatry, with responses on a five-point scale from ‘strongly disagree’1 to ‘strongly agree’ 5.…”

“…‘Aqoon’, meaning ‘knowledge’ in Somali, is KSP’s online global mental health peer-to-peer e-learning partnership between medical students in London and Somaliland 27. Established in 2009, participants report improved attitudes to psychiatry, factual knowledge and cross-cultural understanding 28.…”

Stronger together: midwifery twinning between Tanzania and Canada

“…Also, contrary to other twinning programs, in the case of Umoja, it was the person to person twinning initiative that failed. While other projects have reported relative success with individual twinning initiatives [ 34 – 36 ], in the CAM TAMA case, this was the weakest aspect of the collaboration. The project did attempt to pair a number of practicing Tanzanian and Canadian midwives, but these relationships faltered and never took root.…”

“…These twins have a series of individual meetings, usually by telephone, skype, or other electronic communication technologies, and share skills, experiences, and information. They may also undertake projects together, such as devising a joint training program or fundraising activity [ 4 , 34 – 36 ]. Such initiatives have been lauded as cost-effective [ 36 ]; they also emphasize mutual learning, insisting that the global south partners can bring useful knowledge and information to the exchange, rather than just being passive participants [ 34 , 35 ].…”

Social value creation through digital activism in an online health community

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