Is knowledge retained by healthcare providers after training? A pragmatic evaluation of drug-resistant tuberculosis management in China

Objectives Considering the urgent need of training to improve standardised management of drug-resistant infectious disease and the lack of evidence on the impact of training, this study evaluates whether training participants' knowledge on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is improved immediately and a year after training. Setting and participants The study involved 91 MDR-TB healthcare providers (HCPs), including clinical doctors, nurses and CDC staff, who attended a new MDR-TB HCP training programme in Liaoning and Jiangxi provinces, China. Main outcome measures A phone-based assessment of participants' long-term retention of knowledge about MDR-TB management was conducted in July 2017, approximately 1 year after training. The proportion of correct responses in the long-term knowledge assessment was compared with a pretraining test and an immediate post-training test using a χ 2 test. Factors influencing participants' performance in the long-term knowledge assessment were analysed using linear regression. Results Across both provinces, knowledge of definitions of drug-resistant TB, standardised MDR-TB case detection protocols and laboratory diagnosis was improved 1 year after the training by 14.5% (p=0.037), 32.4% (p Conclusion Our study, the first to assess knowledge retention of MDR-TB HCPs 1 year after training, showed an overall positive long-term impact of lecture-style group training on participants' knowledge. Knowledge decline 1 year after training was observed in one province, Jiangxi, and this may be partly addressed by targeted support to HCPs with fewer years of clinical experience.