Community health worker training for infant hearing health: effectiveness of distance learning

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a distance training program in infant hearing health to community health workers (CHWs).

Pre- and post- tests were administered to two groups of subjects following the use of an interactive CD-ROM for tele-educational training.

Two groups of subjects were used: Group I (GI) consisted of 43 CHWs who had previously participated in at least one training activity involving hearing health, and Group II (GII) were 47 CHWs who had received no prior training in hearing health.

CHWs retained a significant amount of training content. There was not significant correlation between the global post-training questionnaire score and performance on the simulation activity (GI: r = 0.11, p = 0.698 and GII: r = 0.29, p = 0.074), and the simulation activity performance was significantly better among GI CHWs (p = 0.05).

The CHWs' training in infant hearing health using an interactive tele-educational tool was effective, as the CHW demonstrated significant short-term information retention and applied such data in hypothetical situations representative of their daily activities.