Andia Meksi1, Irena Ceko Marko2, Romina Hala1, Daniela Sufati1, Griselda Qosja3
1Institute of Public Health, Tirana, Albania;
2Addictology and Clinical Toxicology Service at University Hospital “Mother Teresa”, Tirana, Albania;
3Health Center No.4, Tirana, Albania.
Aim: On February 2020, Medical University of Tirana in collaboration with University of California, San Diego, USA organized a 5 day Training of Trainers on Universal Treatment Curriculum on Substance Use Disorder for Addiction Professionals. 25 participants from academic and treatment institutions were invited to participate at the UTC ToT.During the training, participants were asked to fill in the pre and posttest on 4 main domains: 1. Physiology and Pharmacology of SUD, 2. Case management and Continuity of Care, 3. Co-occurring disorders: Mental health and Substance Use Disorders, 4. Basic Counseling Skills. We will present the results of the pre and posttest questionnaires as a mean to understand participants’ ability to retain the information learned during the training period. . Participants had different professional background, toxicology and addiction medical doctors, nurse and psychologists.
Methods: The assessment consisted of 2 identical multi choice tests with 15 questions each for each of the training domain on SUD, in total 8 tests. Participants filled in the pretest before the presentation of the training domain and after. In total 23 participants out of 25 completed the pre and posttests. The average of the improvement rate from the pre and posttest was extracted.
Results: 19(82%) participants out of 23 showed an improvement in their answers for UTC 1 post test. The average number of correct answers for UTC1 posttest is 11.5 compared to 8.8 for UTC1 pretest. 4 (17.3%) participants had the same number of correct answers for both pre and post test of UTC 1 with an average of 8.7 correct answers. For UTC3 post test results, 14 (63.6%) participants out of 22 showed an improvement of overall correct answers with an average number of 11.9 which is 3.2 questions more compared to the average number of correct answers from the pre test results. 2 (9%) had the same number of correct answers for both pre and post test (11.4;10). On the other hand 5 (22.7%) participants showed a deterioration of correct answers from the post test (10) compared to the pretest (11.4). The same pattern of correct answers is observed at the results for URC4. 7 (31.8%) participants out of 22 showed improvement of overall correct answers from the post test with an average of 9.4 answers correct compared to the pre test (8.5). 5 (22.7 %) participants had the same overall correct number with an average of 5.3 and 9(45.4%) participants showed a deterioration of -2.6 average correct answers from the post test (6) compared to the pretest (8.6).
Conclusion: The training was rated as useful from the participants and they felt that the topics presented were related to their work. 90% of them would recommend the training to their colleagues. The redoing of the pre and posttest is useful in understanding the participants’ abilities to retain the information gained in long period of time.
Keywords: health professionals, pre and post test, substance use disorders, training.