Fun & games at the Cochrane Centre

If you think about feedback sessions at workshops, it's usually one big yawn. But not with this innovative and creative method developed by the South African Cochrane Centre.

When the staff of the South African Cochrane Centre were asked to develop a reproductive health care training workshop for health workers and policy-makers a few years ago, they did it with their usual flair.

A workshop of this kind, which is intended to build capacity in evidence-based health care for practitioners of resource-poor countries, is necessarily brimming with technical information. So how do you make sure that delegates remember what they've learnt and not fall asleep at the end of a demanding workshop day? With a game, of course!

The board game, which is played at the end of the last day, is the brainchild of one of the workshop developers, Ms Jawaya Small, a health education consultant at the Red Cross Children's Hospital Child and Family Unit. It's based on the well-known snakes-and-ladders game and is called 'Evidence in action'. The game is set in a rural African clinic with accompanying cartoons to illustrate the many challenges encountered by clinic staff on a daily basis.

Players are asked to 'pick a card' with a question based on the workshop content of basic epidemiology, systematic review methods and best evidence for reproductive health care.

When players answer correctly, they advance along the rural path, following the prompts on the board. But you could also find your 'ambulance stuck in the mud' or your 'clinic pharmacy out of supplies' which can result in you missing a turn or going back a few spaces.

Centre co-director Dr Nandi Siegfried says the game can also be adapted for training in other areas such as HIV/AIDS, malaria or TB.