Benefits of community-based education to the community in South African health science facilities

Background: Community-based education (CBE) is utilised by health science facultiesworldwide to provide a relevant primary care experience for students and a service tounderserved communities and, hopefully, to affect student career choices. The benefits totraining institutions and students are well documented, but it may well be that communities,too, will be able to benefit from a more balanced partnership, where they are consulted in theplanning of such training programmes. Method: An exploratory qualitative study was undertaken by three South African universitiesin the provinces of Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. Focus group interviewswere conducted in their local languages with groups of community leaders, patients andsupervisors at community sites involved in CBE training. A thematic analysis of their viewswas undertaken with the aid of NVivo (version 9). Ethics approval was obtained from therespective universities and health care training sites. Results: Benefits to the community could be categorised into short-term and long-term benefits.Short-term benefits included improved service delivery, reduction in hospital referrals, homevisits and community orientated primary health care, improved communication with patientsand enhanced professionalism of the health care practitioner. Long-term benefits includedimproved teaching through a relationship with an academic institution and student familiaritywith the health care system. Students also became involved in community upliftment projects,thereby acting as agents of change in these communities. Conclusion: Communities can certainly benefit from well-planned CBE programmes involvinga training site ‑ community site partnership.

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