Pharmacy students’ perceptions of a health promoter-led community-based diabetes educational intervention: a case study

Abstract

Background: Over half of South Africans with diabetes mellitus are undiagnosed, while among those diagnosed and on treatment, frequently demonstrate poor diabetes control. Community-oriented primary care initiatives are being piloted to offer decentralised health promotion and preventive services to vulnerable communities. Trained health promoters (HPs) have yielded positive outcomes in the delivery of a structured diabetes educational outreach intervention. This study aimed to explore final year pharmacy students’ learning perceptions following their participation in a HP-led community-based diabetes educational outreach intervention.

Methods: This descriptive, qualitative case study documented final year pharmacy students (n = 4) experiences of this outreach, which contributed to an interprofessional education activity required for their community health rotation assignment. Students presented the medicine use session and conducted face-to-face group interviews (pre- and post-intervention) to gauge the community participants’ (n = 13) awareness of the educational messages from the outreach. An unstructured reflection session was conducted with the students at the end of the rotation. Student responses were independently transcribed, coded and thematically analysed.

Results: Students noted that community participants demonstrated an improved awareness of diabetes, diet and medication, and observed an equitable engagement between community participants and the outreach team, contrary to their traditional facility-based experiences. They especially lauded the HP’s guiding style of communication, which prompted community participants to openly share their lived experiences resulting in peer and reciprocal learning. Students attested to improvements in their communication, confidence and interprofessional collaboration.

Conclusion: Students endorsed the HP-led community-based outreach experience. Trained HPs may be a resource for pharmacy experiential learning programmes.