PANDA Overview

PANDA seeks to use qualitative methods to understand what matters to patients in their receipt of surgical care, to prioritise these themes, and explore differences across countries and contexts. Design and delivery of PANDA will be informed by patient and community representatives, with the explicit aim of growing networks for local community involvement in LMICs. Use of qualitative methodology to explore patients experiences of surgical treatment in depth in this study will have several advantages.

Firstly, it will allow deep conceptual understanding of patient’s priorities during their surgical care journeys. Whilst each patient will have their own unique care story, there are likely to be commonalities to patient experience which could underpin patient-centred design for large, multi-country research studies. Secondly, working with patients and community representatives to co-produce and prioritise themes will help improve capacity and leadership for CEI in low-resource settings. Thirdly, through talking to patients about research topics in depth we will improve ‘research literacy’ amongst local populations, and help to identify new patient partners for research involvement in global surgery.

Through co-production of the PANDA study between patients, community members and research team members in LMICs, the key principles of sharing power, building relationships, diverse perspectives, respect and reciprocity for successful CEI will be upheld.

Research exploring patients experiences of surgical care has predominantly focussed on the preoperative setting (i.e., access to care). Qualitative studies of the perioperative care pathway have focussed on providers resilience to resource shortfalls, system level factors impacting on care delivery, and preoperative optimisation checklists. Few studies have focussed on patient priorities for their surgical care, and none in LMICs. In a study with a similar methodology in Sweden (high income) four areas were highlighted including accessibility, reliability, caring attitudes and empowerment.

For patients undergoing head and neck cancer surgery in an Australian hospital (high-income), psychological support for ‘shocks and aftershocks’ was prioritised as a key research area. There is an urgent need to understand patients experiences and priorities for surgical care in LMICs to inform future research planning and design.

You can view further information on the study via the recently created PowerPoint presentation.

Burns are a significant contributor to the burden of disease in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Although current guidelines recommend treatment in specialized treatment centres, such centres are few or non-existent in many LMIC settings.

This study is a prospective observational study comparing outcomes of burns treatments between non-specialised and specialised burns units.

Led by Dr Chikwendu Ede and Dr Rachel Moore from the NIHR Global Surgery Unit hub in South Africa, this is a prospective observational study comparing outcomes of burns treatments between non-specialised and specialised burns units. Information on 90 day mortality will be collected over a 6 month period at up to 9 non-specialised hospitals treating adult burns patients and compared to outcomes for patients at a dedicated burns unit at Chris Hani Baragwanarth Academic Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg.

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