Addressing Gender-Based Violence through Health Professional Education : Progress Review and Way Forward

Overview & Synopsis

The study aims to examine the integration of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) into the pre-service education curricula of health professionals in Cambodia. It explores three specific aims: (1) review the progress and achievements in integrating GBV into health professional education; (2) analyze the critical challenges faced by health education institutions in translating GBV competencies into practice; and (3) provide actionable recommendations to address GBV through health professional education. This study used qualitative methods, including Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and site visit observations. This study found that GBV has been successfully integrated into the curricula of the pre-service education of six health professions, including medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, medical laboratory, nursing, and midwifery. As the integration of GBV is an innovative approach to pre-service education for health professionals, the implementation of GBV-integrated curricula faces challenges, such as a lack of preparedness of health educators, inadequate teaching and learning resources, insufficient consideration of GBV practice sites, and a shortage of simulation rooms for GBV counseling practice. This study offers recommendations to facilitate the implementation of Competency-Based Education (CBE) on GBV, such as (1) strengthening the preparedness of educators to implement CBE on GBV, (2) prioritizing practice sites for GBV competencies, and (3) expanding the enabling environment for the success of the implementation of CBE on GBV.