In-service training for health professionals to improve care of seriously ill newborns and children in low-income countries

Opiyo, Newton; English, Mike

In-service training costs both time and money, for example, the cost of the two-day European Paediatric Life Support (EPLS) course is estimated to be about USD 190 per trainee in Kenya (personal communication with ME, 2009). Apart from the sometimes high costs of providing courses (often recovered in high-income countries with high course fees), attendance at such courses often means that important staff are absent from their normal duties with potential disruption to patient care and, for some, loss of personal income (Jabbour 1996) . Despite their high costs, emergency care courses remain a thriving enterprise in many high-income countries, as is reflected in their ever increasing number and variety (Jewkes 2003) . In the hope that they might improve the quality of care in low-and middle-income countries, considerable global efforts and investments have gone into further development, refinement and adaptation of these courses to meet the needs of individual countries (Baskett 2005 ). Yet despite these investments and the faith placed in them by many organisations and institutions, evidence of their effectiveness in improving treatment of seriously ill newborns and children remains unclear. Several studies on in-service emergency care training for newborns and children have been completed since our original review was published, in 2010. Therefore an updated review of the effectiveness of these courses is needed.