Growing health partnerships in rural and remote communities: what drives the joint efforts of primary schools and universities in maintaining service learning partnerships?

Sue Kirby; Fabian P Held; Debra Jones; David Lyle

doi:10.1017/S146342361700086X

Growing health partnerships in rural and remote communities: what drives the joint efforts of primary schools and universities in maintaining service learning partnerships?

Prim Health Care Res Dev. 2018 Sep;19(5):503-517. doi: 10.1017/S146342361700086X. Epub 2018 Jan 10.

Authors

Sue Kirby¹, Fabian P Held², Debra Jones³, David Lyle⁴

Affiliations

¹ 1Senior Research Fellow,Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health,The University of Sydney,Broken Hill,NSW,Australia.
² 2Charles Perkins Centre,Faculty of Science,School of Mathematics and Statistics,The University of Sydney,Broken Hill,NSW,Australia.
³ 3Director,Primary Health Care Stream,Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health,The University of Sydney,Broken Hill,NSW,Australia.
⁴ 4Head of Department,Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health,The University of Sydney,Broken Hill,NSW,Australia.

Abstract

AimThis study explored the partnership between universities and local primary schools to deliver a classroom-based paediatric communication impairment service provided by undergraduate speech pathology students. It aimed to understand how partnerships work to facilitate programme replication.

Background: The partners included universities sending students on rural clinical placement, local host academic units and primary schools who worked together to provide paediatric speech and language services in primary schools in three sites in Australia. Rural and remote communities experience poorer health outcomes because of chronic workforce shortages, social disadvantage and high Aboriginality, poor access to services and underfunding.

Methods: The study was in twofold: qualitative analysis of data from interviews/focus group with the partners in the university and education sectors, and quantitative social network analysis of data from an electronic survey of the partners.FindingsFactors supporting partnerships were long-term, work and social relationships, commitment to community, trust and an appetite for risk-taking. We postulate that these characteristics are more likely to exist in rural communities.

Keywords: community partnerships; qualitative research; rural health services; social network analysis; speech language pathology.

Publication types

Multicenter Study

MeSH terms

Australia
Focus Groups
Humans
Interviews as Topic
Program Evaluation / methods*
Rural Health Services*
Rural Population
School Health Services*
Speech Disorders / diagnosis*
Speech Disorders / therapy*
Speech-Language Pathology / education
Speech-Language Pathology / methods*
Universities