Background and objectives

Mindset Health, an NGO that creates digital educational content broadcast into health facilities, aims to increase competence, positive attitudes, self-efficacy and motivation, in order to aid HCPs professional development in the areas of HIV, AIDS, TB and other related diseases management. A main assumption of the programme is that an improvement in knowledge of ICT and IT will improve access and usage of health education resources. Content will be distributed to over 40 new clinics/hospitals early in 2008. Indicators will be tracked and compared in future in order to ascertain outcomes as well as impacts.

Method

A longitudinal, quasi-experimental design will be implemented to investigate how Mindset Health solutions impact on HCPs practice and the influence it has on the HIV/TB epidemic.

Pre and post-test investigations will be utilised to establish changes in trends and impact of the programme. In addition, the relationship between health content utilisation and knowledge and characteristics of HCPs will be established.

The sample includes a selection of HCPs, purposively randomly chosen based on a ratio of HCPs to size of site. Purposive sampling is essential to include all levels or grades of HCPs.

Results

Data collected for the baseline research will be compared to later research to determine impact and outcomes. Tests of significant difference to determine changes in knowledge, attitudes, experiences, self-efficacy and motivation will be used. Regression analyses and correlations will be used to determine relationships between these variables and HCP characteristics.

Conclusion

Through rigorous monitoring, evaluation and research it is hoped empirical data can be produced to investigate the impact that Mindset Health has on HCPs knowledge and clinic practice. Through impact evaluation, improvements and further developments can be made. In using ICTs and IT, further innovative initiatives can be produced in aid of fighting the HIV/TB epidemic in South Africa and surrounding countries.