Training Primary Health Professionals in Breast Cancer Prevention: Evidence and Experience from Mexico

Abstract

To analyze the key successful factors of a national educational strategy for early breast cancer detection developed in Mexico for primary health care personnel from 2008 to 2014, an educational strategy to train physicians, nurses, health promoters, and medical students from local ministries of health with a competency-based approach was developed and implemented using diverse educational modalities, face-to-face, blended, and a massive open online course (MOOC). Formative and summative evaluations were used during the implementation of the course. A total of 19,563 health professionals were trained from 2008 to 2014. The graduation rate, an average of all educational modalities, was 91 %, much higher than those previously reported in the literature. The factors that might have influenced this success were (1) the training strategy, which was designed according to the characteristics and specific needs of the target groups; (2) the political will and commitment of the country’s health authorities; (3) the technological and educational models used; and (4) the punctual follow-up of participants. This study shows that carefully designed educational interventions can improve service professionals’ competencies and that regardless of the modality, face-to-face, blended learning, or MOOC, high graduation rates can be achieved. Further evaluation is required to demonstrate that the competencies remained in all target groups after 6 months of the intervention and that the women served by the trained personnel were provided accurate information and timely diagnoses of breast cancer.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13187-016-1065-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

La formación docente en línea: experiencias con MOOCs en Sonora (México)

“…Finalmente, se destaca la importancia del papel de la autoridad educativa; la escasa orientación y participación de la autoridad educativa influyó de manera poco favorable en la experiencia de las profesoras en la "Colección de Aprendizajes Clave". Para atender necesidades nacionales de formación por medio de estrategias a gran escala, como es el caso de los MOOCs, se ha evidenciado que la orientación de la autoridad es un factor clave para el éxito de este tipo de estrategias (Magaña-Valladares, González-Robledo, et al, 2018;. Lo anterior pone de manifiesto la relevancia de un compromiso conjunto, que permita la conformación de un equipo entre autoridades educativas, diseñadores instruccionales, facilitadores y líderes, que asegure la calidad de la implementación de estrategias de esta naturaleza para los profesores.…”

Community-based participatory design of a community health worker breast cancer training intervention for South Florida Latinx farmworkers

“…During focus groups and interviews, participants were shown examples of existing materials developed for health promoters in Mexico [49][50][51], including small model breasts with palpable lumps, informational aprons with instructions on monthly breast exploration, a training flipbook, and recreational board games, to determine which, if any, they felt would be beneficial to include in our package. After learning that CHW-client interactions in this community are typically very brief (often 5-10 minutes at a health fair), we determined that the board games would not be context-appropriate and were excluded from our package.…”

“…A research group in Mexico, spearheaded by the civil society organization Tómatelo a Pecho, developed and implemented a train-thetrainer program consisting of innovative and culturally-relevant educational materials used to train CHWs to then further educate and promote breast health and early cancer detection in their communities [49]. These materials and competency-based training protocols have been evaluated and deployed in multiple settings in Mexico with over 20,000 trainees [49][50][51].…”

Terapia cognitivo-conductual grupal sobre la sintomatología depresiva-ansiosa y temperatura nasal en mujeres con cáncer de mama: Estudio piloto

“…En México, el cáncer de mama es la segunda causa de muerte por enfermedad en mujeres con un rango de edad entre 30-54 años (1) . El diagnóstico y tratamiento oncológico generalmente provocan sintomatología depresiva-ansiosa (2) .…”