Assessment of Community Stakeholders’ and Health Educators and Professionals’ Needs for the Continuous Enhancement of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Mali (Project CLEFS): Protocol for a Convergent Mixed Methods Study

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BACKGROUND: In Mali, a lack of qualified human resources in primary health care and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is one of the greatest barriers to the population's access to standard health services. Frontline professional training must be strengthened to respond to the needs of the population, particularly those of women and girls. Training must be conducted using an interdisciplinary and adapted approach to promote gender equality. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify the SRHR training needs among the community, educational actors, and primary health care providers. METHODS: A concurrent mixed methods design was adopted, using 2 methods. A quantitative method, through a cross-sectional analytical survey, will be conducted at the community level with university community health centers (CSCom-U) users and adolescents in CSCom-U health areas, as well as at the health education institution and community health centers levels with teachers, students, and interdisciplinary professional groups within the CSCom-U and district hospital maternity. Descriptive and inferential analyses will be conducted to process quantitative data. This research is at the stage of data analysis and interpretation. A qualitative method, based on 3 sources of data (focus groups, individual semistructured interviews, and document analysis), which involved the same targets as the quantitative component, with additional community actors such as Community Health Associations (Associations de santé communautaire) and Women's Service User Communities. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data using a mixed deductive and inductive method will be performed. RESULTS: : Field data collection took place from March to April 2022. Quantitative data from 3153 participants are being analyzed using SPSS. Qualitative data from 11 interviews and 27 focus groups were processed with Qualitative Data Analysis Miner. Data analysis is still ongoing. CONCLUSIONS: This study will provide a better understanding of adolescents and SRHR user's service needs in terms of health services availability and quality and SRHR knowledge, issues related to student training quality, the level of adequacy between the training offered and the actual needs of the service recipients, and the level of preparation and ability of teachers to provide quality teaching taking gender equity into account. The recommendations drawn from this assessment will propose concrete actions to improve women and girls' health services provided by professionals, and to better adapt the future health professionals' profiles to the needs of communities, particularly those of women and girls. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/64796.