Raising Awareness of Pelvic Floor Disorders Among Cultural Health Brokers to Improve Refugee and Immigrant Women's Pelvic Floor Health.

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: Pelvic Floor Disorders (PFDs) are common and negatively affect women's quality of life. Despite availability of treatments, women often do not seek medical care. Patient knowledge is a known barrier to accessing care. It has been shown that knowledge of PFDs is lower in Canadian immigrant communities. We hypothesized that educating Cultural Health Brokers (CHBs) on PFD will significantly increase the CHBs' knowledge and empower them to effectively communicate this knowledge to their communities, improving awareness and access to care among immigrant women.

METHODS: We developed a "train-the-trainer" model on PFD knowledge for CHBs. Two workshops were held for 36 CHBs. Written material was produced in ten languages. CHB perspectives on the training was assessed with the Kirkpatrick model and knowledge retention was assessed with Prolapse and Incontinence Knowledge Questionnaires (PIKQ) pre and post workshops and at 1-year follow-up.

RESULTS: Participants found that workshop content, the facilitators' knowledge, and delivery were appropriate. Participating in the workshop increased knowledge in urinary incontinence PIKQ score (9.6 ± 1.9 vs. 11.2 ± 0.9; p = 0.0003); and prolapse (7.8 ± 2.4 vs. 9.8 ± 1.4; p < 0.0005). The 1-year follow-up survey revealed that over 80% of CHBs felt empowered to discuss PFD with clients, and 80% of CHBs believed that the training empowered clients to seek care.

CONCLUSIONS: The "train-the-trainer" model was well received by our community partners and improved PFD knowledge in CHBs. We expect this will result in increased knowledge of PFDs among immigrant women and better access to care for this population.