Furthering Palliative Care Training in Latin America: Development and Assessment of an Advanced Diploma Course in Palliative Care in Chile.

CONTEXT:The vast majority of people with serious health-related suffering in low- and middle-income countries lack access to palliative care (PC). In Latin America, this shortage is critical, and PC education is greatly needed. OBJECTIVES:This study aims to assess the effects of an advanced PC diploma course in Chile through assessment of participants' satisfaction, knowledge, behavior, and self-efficacy. METHODS:We developed and implemented a 12-day, hybrid-setting, advanced PC diploma course for Latin American clinicians and collected and analyzed pre course, immediate post course, and 6-month post course quantitative and qualitative data on satisfaction, knowledge, behaviors, and self-efficacy. RESULTS:Thirteen Latin American doctors participated in this advanced PC diploma course. Overall knowledge and self-efficacy increased post course. One hundred percent of participants described the course as "very high quality" or "high quality," described the course's teaching methods as "very easy to understand" or "easy to understand," and ranked role-play as a "very useful" tool. CONCLUSION:There is a critical shortage of PC in Latin America where PC education is greatly needed. The lessons learned from this pilot advanced PC diploma course will inform further PC educational development in Latin America. The results of our course assessments show that an advanced diploma course can increase participants' PC knowledge, behaviors, and self-efficacy with a goal of leveraging the Train the Trainer model to increase PC educational leadership and enable training at participants' home institutions.