Our health professionals’ training needs survey

In October 2022, we surveyed 233 health professionals from all Australian states and territories, from major cities (30%), urban and suburban areas (27%), and regional (25%), rural (12%) and remote (6%) regions. 

The majority of respondents were medical practitioners (61%, including 122 general practitioners), nurses (14%) and allied health professionals (12%). 

Respondents clearly prefer online continuing professional development (CPD) and flexibility in when they can access CPD, compared to face-to-face and fixed-time learning. Preferred learning modalities are webinars, eLearning and podcasts. Healthy Male already provides webinars and eLearning for health professional CPD and will continue to do so. Planning for podcasts has already commenced. 

Many of Healthy Male’s CPD opportunities are endorsed by colleges and peak bodies. More than half of medical practitioners, nurses and allied health professionals indicated that such recognition is desirable but not critical, but more than a quarter of each group indicated that CPD endorsement was critical. Healthy Male is pleased the work we do towards endorsement of our training opportunities is valued. 

Healthy Male provides health information and education resources across multiple platforms, including YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, our website, email and in print. Our website, patient resources, eLearning, webinars, emailed newsletters, research reviews and other articles are useful resources for more than half of all respondents, but social media channels are not utilised by many health professionals. 

Our health professional survey suggested a variety of topics to be covered by Healthy Male learning resources. All topics were supported by at least one-third of all health professional groups, with the top three being urology, mental health, and social well-being. This issue of The Male, focused on loneliness, relates to two of these top three priorities. 

Healthy Male looks forward to continuing to provide evidence-based information and education that meets the needs of everyone who contributes to improving the health of Australia’s men and boys.