An evaluation of knowledge translation in the South African primary healthcare setting

[摘要] Knowledge translation describes the process of getting knowledge into practice,leading to a healthy workforce and economy. Knowledge translation is particularlychallenging at the primary healthcare level, which manifests as a research to practicegap.This research aimed to explore and describe knowledge translation from both aknowledge translation organisation's and knowledge user's point of view at the SouthAfrican primary healthcare level. A qualitative dominant, mixed methods approach wasused. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine organisations toevaluate their knowledge translation strategies. An online survey collected responsesfrom primary healthcare workers to assess their knowledge needs and preferences.Lastly, the Thinking Processes of Theory of Constraints were applied to the publicsector to identify ways in which knowledge translation can be optimised within theDepartment of Health system.This research found that the organisations' strategies were inextricably linked to theknowledge translation context. Barriers to knowledge translation in the public andprivate sector as well as urban and rural areas differed in many respects.Organisations were successful in overcoming many of these barriers, but barriers thatreside at the Department of Health (DOH) policy level, remain difficult to address.The 82 survey respondents were mostly doctors from the urban private sector. Theyrepresented a distinct subset of practitioners who preferred using the internet to accessknowledge and identified no significant barriers to staying up to date.The Thinking Processes identified possible solutions to getting new DOH guidelinesinto practice in a fast, reliable and coordinated manner. This requires increasedcollaboration between knowledge translation organisations and the DOH as well as thedesign of a system for updating the DOH guidelines on an annual basis.

[发布机构] University of Pretoria