Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32176774›Full record

ArticleInternational health2021

Reliability of the Service Trip Audit Tool to assess the quality of short-term medical missions.

Christopher Dainton, Christina Gorman, William Cherniak, Lorena Lopez, Charlene H Chu

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in International health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
0.4field-weighted citation impact, top 35% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.

Christopher DaintonMcMaster University, 1280 Main St West, Hamilton, ON, Canada, L8S 4L8.
Christina GormanDepartment of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, 155 College Street Toronto, ON M5T 3M7 Canada.
William CherniakDepartment of Family and Community Medicine, Division of Emergency Medicine, Markham Stouffville Hospital, 381 Church St, Markham, ON L3P 7P3, Canada.
Lorena LopezUniversidad Privada Antenor Orrego, Avenida América Sur 3145, Trujillo 13008, Peru.
Charlene H ChuDepartment of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, 155 College Street Toronto, ON M5T 3M7 Canada.
University of Toronto · CAAntenor Orrego Private University · PEMarkham Stouffville Hospital · CAMcMaster University · CA

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundWe aimed to assess the adherence of short-term medical missions (STMMs) operating in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to key best practices using the Service Trip Audit Tool (STAT) and to calculate the inter-rater reliability of the data points. This tool was based on a previously published inventory of 18 STMM best practices.

methodsProgramme administrators and recent volunteers from 335 North American organizations offering STMMs in LAC were invited to complete the STAT anonymously online. Adherence to each of 18 best practices was reported as either 'yes', 'no' or 'not sure'. Fleiss' κ was used to assess inter-rater agreement of the responses.

resultsA total of 194 individuals from 102 organizations completed the STAT (response rate 30.4%; 102/335 organizations) between 12 July and 7 August 2017. Reported adherence was >80% for 9 of 18 best practices. For 37 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with multiple raters, inter-rater agreement was moderate to substantial (κ>0.4) for 12 of 18 best practices.

conclusionsThis is the first study to evaluate adherence to STMM best practices. Such an objective evaluation will be valuable to governments, volunteers and NGO donors who have an interest in identifying high-quality partners. Assessment and monitoring of STMMs through self-audit may be foundational steps towards quality improvement.

Indexed as

Medical MissionsCaribbean RegionHumansReproducibility of ResultsVolunteersglobal healthmedical missionsprimary care

Identifiers

PMID32176774
PMCPMC8643480
OpenAlexW3011438291

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.