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Medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals

BACKGROUND: Improving the knowledge and competencies of healthcare professionals is crucial to better address the specific needs of persons living in poverty and avoid stigmatization. This study aimed to explore the needs and expectations of persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals in...

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Autores principales: Hudon, Catherine, Loignon, Christine, Grabovschi, Cristina, Bush, Paula, Lambert, Mireille, Goulet, Émilie, Boyer, Sophie, De Laat, Marianne, Fournier, Nathalie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4828813/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27066826
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0630-4
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author Hudon, Catherine
Loignon, Christine
Grabovschi, Cristina
Bush, Paula
Lambert, Mireille
Goulet, Émilie
Boyer, Sophie
De Laat, Marianne
Fournier, Nathalie
author_facet Hudon, Catherine
Loignon, Christine
Grabovschi, Cristina
Bush, Paula
Lambert, Mireille
Goulet, Émilie
Boyer, Sophie
De Laat, Marianne
Fournier, Nathalie
author_sort Hudon, Catherine
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Improving the knowledge and competencies of healthcare professionals is crucial to better address the specific needs of persons living in poverty and avoid stigmatization. This study aimed to explore the needs and expectations of persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals in terms of medical training regarding poverty and its effects on health and healthcare. METHODS: We conducted a participatory action research study using photovoice, a method using photography, together with merging of knowledge and practice, an approach promoting dialogue between different sources of knowledge. Nineteen healthcare professionals and persons from an international community organization against poverty participated in the study. The first phase included 60 meetings and group sessions to identify the perceived barriers between persons living in poverty and healthcare teams. In the second phase, sub-committees deployed action plans in academic teaching units to overcome barriers identified in the first phase. Data were analysed through thematic analysis, using NVivo, in collaboration with five non-academic co-researchers. RESULTS: Four themes in regard to medical training were highlighted: improving medical students’ and residents’ knowledge on poverty and the living conditions of persons living in poverty; improving their understanding of the reality of those people; improving their relational skills pertaining to communication and interaction with persons living in poverty; improving their awareness and capacity for self-reflection. At the end of the second phase, actions were undertaken such as improving knowledge of the living conditions of persons living in poverty by posting social assistance rates, and tailoring interventions to patients’ reality by including sociodemographic information in electronic medical records. Our findings also led to a participatory research project aiming to improve the skills and competency of residents and health professionals in regard to the quality of healthcare provided to persons living in poverty. CONCLUSIONS: Medical training and residency programs should aim to improve students’ and residents’ relational skills, more specifically their communication skills, as well as their awareness and capacity for self-reflection, by helping them to identify and recognize their biases, and limitations.
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spelling pubmed-48288132016-04-13 Medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals Hudon, Catherine Loignon, Christine Grabovschi, Cristina Bush, Paula Lambert, Mireille Goulet, Émilie Boyer, Sophie De Laat, Marianne Fournier, Nathalie BMC Med Educ Research Article BACKGROUND: Improving the knowledge and competencies of healthcare professionals is crucial to better address the specific needs of persons living in poverty and avoid stigmatization. This study aimed to explore the needs and expectations of persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals in terms of medical training regarding poverty and its effects on health and healthcare. METHODS: We conducted a participatory action research study using photovoice, a method using photography, together with merging of knowledge and practice, an approach promoting dialogue between different sources of knowledge. Nineteen healthcare professionals and persons from an international community organization against poverty participated in the study. The first phase included 60 meetings and group sessions to identify the perceived barriers between persons living in poverty and healthcare teams. In the second phase, sub-committees deployed action plans in academic teaching units to overcome barriers identified in the first phase. Data were analysed through thematic analysis, using NVivo, in collaboration with five non-academic co-researchers. RESULTS: Four themes in regard to medical training were highlighted: improving medical students’ and residents’ knowledge on poverty and the living conditions of persons living in poverty; improving their understanding of the reality of those people; improving their relational skills pertaining to communication and interaction with persons living in poverty; improving their awareness and capacity for self-reflection. At the end of the second phase, actions were undertaken such as improving knowledge of the living conditions of persons living in poverty by posting social assistance rates, and tailoring interventions to patients’ reality by including sociodemographic information in electronic medical records. Our findings also led to a participatory research project aiming to improve the skills and competency of residents and health professionals in regard to the quality of healthcare provided to persons living in poverty. CONCLUSIONS: Medical training and residency programs should aim to improve students’ and residents’ relational skills, more specifically their communication skills, as well as their awareness and capacity for self-reflection, by helping them to identify and recognize their biases, and limitations. BioMed Central 2016-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC4828813/ /pubmed/27066826 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0630-4 Text en © Hudon et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hudon, Catherine
Loignon, Christine
Grabovschi, Cristina
Bush, Paula
Lambert, Mireille
Goulet, Émilie
Boyer, Sophie
De Laat, Marianne
Fournier, Nathalie
Medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals
title Medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals
title_full Medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals
title_fullStr Medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals
title_full_unstemmed Medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals
title_short Medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals
title_sort medical education for equity in health: a participatory action research involving persons living in poverty and healthcare professionals
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4828813/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27066826
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-016-0630-4
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