Clinical performance among recent graduates in nine low‐ and middle‐income countries. Issue 5 (24th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lewis, Todd P.; Roder‐DeWan, Sanam; Malata, Address; Ndiaye, Youssoupha; Kruk, Margaret E.
• Is Part Of: Tropical medicine & international health. Volume 24:Issue 5(2019)
• Page Start: 620
• Page End: 635
• Publication Date: 2019-03-24
• Subjects: quality of care -- clinical performance -- low‐ and middle‐income countries; qualité des soins -- performance clinique -- pays à revenu faible ou intermédiaire; Tropical medicine -- Periodicals; Public health -- Periodicals; 616.988
• DOI: 10.1111/tmi.13224
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1360-2276

Abstract

Summary: Objectives: Recent studies have identified large and systematic deficits in clinical care in low‐income countries that are likely to limit health gains. This has focused attention on effectiveness of pre‐service education. One approach to assessing this is observation of clinical performance among recent graduates providing care. However, no studies have assessed performance in a standard manner across countries. We analysed clinical performance among recently graduated providers in nine low‐ or middle‐income countries. Methods: Service Provision Assessments from Haiti, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda were used. We constructed a Good Medical Practice Index that assesses completion of essential clinical actions using direct observations of care (range 0–1), calculated index scores by country and clinical cadre, and assessed the role of facility and clinical characteristics using regression analysis. Results: Our sample consisted of 2223 clinicians with at least one observation of care. The Good Medical Practice score for the sample was 0.50 (SD = 0.20). Nurses and midwives had the highest score at 0.57 (SD = 0.20), followed by associate clinicians at 0.43 (SD = 0.18), and physicians at 0.42 (SD = 0.16). The average national performance varied from 0.63 (SD = 0.18) in Uganda to 0.39 (SD = 0.17) in Nepal, persisting after adjustment for facility and clinician characteristics. Conclusions: These results show substantial gaps in clinical performance among recently graduated clinicians, raising concerns about models of clinical education. Competency‐based education should be considered to improve quality of care in LMICs. Observations of care offer important insight into the quality of clinical education.