Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic providers of HIV care have faced a number of new challenges. Services have been required to accommodate a safer way of delivering care in order to minimise the risks associated with face-to-face contact. During the pandemic this has been further compounded by the reduction in HIV specialist health professionals due to redeployment to critical areas. This has prevented innovation in care not only for those living with HIV, but also all long-term conditions.
As health professionals return to services and as the healthcare system continues to stretch due to increased cuts and reduction in staff, there is growing emphasis on HIV care providers to be more innovative with the care they provide. Therefore, it is necessary that services do not return to pre-COVID-19 ways of working, and to ensure the delivery of high-quality care and education to people living with HIV to meet a growing need for information (Budak et al, 2021).
During 2020 and 2021, within HIV services, COVID-19 initially became an identified barrier to innovation and best practice sharing. The barrier occurred due to the cancellation of in-person conferences, leading to a shift to virtual events, which brought with it the loss of spontaneous networking and thought-provoking conversation and interaction from peers that normally provide opportunities to share best practice and innovation in care.
Further to this, the lack of appropriate IT facilities, time and competing personal and financial demands can render these events inaccessible to a wider, diverse audience. Ultimately, however, COVID-19 provided an opportunity for alternative ways to create and share innovative educational content for health professionals (Kelly et al, 2022), one of these being the creation of new educational resources, such as podcasting, to reach a wider audience than before.
What are podcasts and why are they used?
A podcast is a series of digital audio recordings that can be streamed or downloaded from online sources and consumed using mobile devices. ‘Podcasting’ is not a new phenomenon, having existed for more than 20 years as an alternative to streaming videos online. Podcasts allow a listener free access to a huge amount of content and gives them the option to continue whatever they are doing and still enjoy episodes of their chosen podcast.
Podcasts can cover a wide range of topics: these range from ‘true crime’ (such as Serial or Drunk Women Solving Crimes) and providing a safe place to listen, relax and ‘find your happy’ (examples include Happy Place or On Purpose) to having a chat while enjoying food (eg Hoovering or Table Manners). Many of these have expanded beyond a podcasting platform to provide live performances of the shows themselves.
As a popular platform, podcasting is widely recognised for the application of educational and innovative content, due to the useability and accessibility of the services (Kelly et al, 2022).
Campbell (2005) suggested five reasons for the rapid growth of podcasting:
- Internet activity is pervasive and a common activity throughout the world
- Broadband technology has grown rapidly enabling large files to be downloaded
- The multimedia personal computer has become commonplace
- The distinction between streaming and downloading material has begun to blur
- Finally, there's been a rapid growth in iPod and MP3 adoption.
Since then, the increased use of smartphones and tablet computers has provided further impetus for growth. Podcasts have fostered ‘virtual communities’ to support learning, which has become increasingly more evident because of physical distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Kelly et al, 2022)
The use of podcasts in innovative education of health professionals
When exploring adult learning theory, podcasts are being adopted in relation to health education to support but also to move away from in-class lectures and towards more asynchronous, convenient and self-directed forms of learning (Ho et al, 2019). It has been suggested that podcasting provides the learner with ‘bite-size’ learning, which then enables key skills to be developed, such as communication skills, time management, problem solving, critical and analytical thinking (Panagiotidis, 2021).
Podcasting offers innovative and creative opportunities to support learning by creating a flexible, learner-controlled audio file, with the potential for broadcasting information on a range of subjects. Given all the above, it felt the likely choice when choosing how to broadcast HIV information and educational content to a wider audience.
An extensive online search of HIV educational podcasts revealed only three active podcasts. The focus of these varied from medical aspects of care (The Lancet HIV) to living well with HIV (HIV Hour) and HIV stigma (Talking Stigma with Gareth Thomas, from Tackle HIV). However, on review of the past 18 months of content, the highlighted podcasts revealed a clear educational gap. None of them considered HIV care in relation to the role of the nurse when providing and improving patient care. This is when and why HIV Matters was created.
When exploring the academic literature before establishing the podcast, it became evident that listeners select podcast content for various reasons, which may include the stage in their professional training, personal interest or connection to the guest (Mallin et al, 2014). However, some listeners felt the disadvantages of using podcast compared with other educational formats was the opportunity for distraction, being more easily interrupted and being more prone to divided attention. (Schreiber et al, 2010).
Another factor that was also taken into consideration was the length of the podcast episodes: reports on length in the literature vary, suggesting that anything from 15 to 30 minutes was optimal (White et al, 2011). Based on this information, where possible, the episodes followed this optimal length; however, the ideal length did vary and depended on content.
Overview of the aim of the podcast
The focus of the HIV Matters podcast was to showcase innovation and best practice within the field of HIV care. The overall aim of the podcast series is to raise awareness of the healthcare challenges that people living with HIV face and explore innovations in care to help address current concerns. It was hoped that exploring issues in an expert-led conversation, with a solution-focused approach, would lead to greater understanding of the needs of people living with HIV and enhance the ability of all health professionals to provide person-centred care.
Box 1.HIV Matters available contentSeries 1
- Episode 1 Liz Foote – Intentional and non-intentional adherence
- Episode 2 Ian Hodgson – The role of mentorship and writing for publication
- Episode 3 Matthew Grundy-Bowers – Negotiated safety and the role of PrEP
- Episode 4 John McLuskey – Towards a strategy of HIV nurse education
- Episode 5 Kyle Carabini – The role of the professional nurse advocate
- Episode 6 David Munns – Compassion in HIV care
- Episode 7 Spotlight on a podcast – The WHALE Podcast & Diana's Decade
- Episode 8 Angelina Namibia – Health-related quality of life and women
- Episode 9 Katie Warburton – HIV and children
- Episode 10 Matthew Phillips – HIV and the law
- Episode 11 Producer Dan – Reflections on HIV Matters series 1
Series 1.5 - HIV Matters at NHIVNA Live 2022
- Episode 1 Pre-conference and Michelle Bockor
- Episode 2 Day 1 and delegate catch-up
- Episode 3 Day 2 and delegate catch-up
Series 2
- Episode 1 Chris Irons – Compassionate minds
- Episode 2 Mark Hayter – The development of sexuality in nursing
- Episode 3 Rebecca Mbewe – HIV, women and sex
- Episode 4 Jo Josh – Empowering women living with HIV
- Episode 5 Dr Maurice Nagington and Dr Jaime Garcia-Iglesias – HIV, COVID-19 and monkey pox
- Episode 6 Stephen Marks – Sex, drugs and psychiatry
- Episode 7 Winnie Sseruma – Getting older with HIV
- Episode 8 Stephen Hart – Hart Talks with HIV Matters
- Episode 9 Alice Welbourn – The nuance of international HIV gender and health
- Episode 10 Nathaniel Hall and Jenny Kendrick – HIV and stigma
Feedback on podcast so far
The educational outcomes of the podcast in the first instance were measured using the analytics that are built into the podcast hosting platform. The analytics identified what drives listeners, what the listeners were likely to watch, the peak listening time and maximum number of listeners. From this information we were able to identify the average number of listeners, maximum number of minutes listened to, peak times and number of listens to explore trends and identify level of interest. Feedback received from series 1 of the podcast suggested that exploring issues in a conversational, solution-focused approach leads to greater understanding of the needs of people living with HIV and enhanced health professionals' ability to provide person-centred care. In the 11 weeks that the podcast was released on the podcasting platforms we have had more than 1000 unique listeners, and these are listeners that have listened to more than one episode. The podcast has been listened to in 13 countries outside the UK.
The feedback from listeners demonstrated that they valued the podcast for its educational content, as well as its entertainment value that was evident within the show. Listeners also reported that listening to the podcast made them feel more connected to the HIV community and also to larger national and global communities.
Lessons learnt and top tips for people considering creating a podcast
Some of the key lessons learnt through undertaking the podcast were to engage in conversation and ask questions to which you genuinely want to know the answers. This helps with engaging the guest and makes good content for the listeners. Plus, it makes the process more enjoyable both for you and for the guest.
One of the key learning points for us that happened early in the show's development – as silly as it sounds now – is that the written word is not the same as the spoken word. We would develop podcast scripts that, when they were read out, did not sound great. Over time, as confidence in the process grew, we would use the scripts to make sure we had talking points and an idea of ‘session flow’ for the guests.
To make the podcast more inclusive we would have liked to have included a transcript to accompany the podcast. Sadly, this is not yet possible on the hosting platform that we use. It is hoped that moving forward this will change and the HIV Matters podcast will be able to provide written summaries.
Finally, one of the biggest things we learnt as a result of undertaking the HIV Matters podcast was how generous our guests were with their time and knowledge. We think that this factor, together with the supportive listener, has made the podcast the success that it is.
Our top tips for others wanting to start a podcast would be:
- Do your research about the guest and subject area
- Ask experts for their advice when needed – you don't have know everything
- Book onto as many podcasting courses as you can
- Develop a good understanding of microphones and invest wisely – you will appreciate this in post production
- Be brave and enjoy the process.
As a result of the success of the podcast we will be launching a third series, with more series currently being planned. We are also exploring funding options to undertake a more comprehensive review of the educational benefit of the podcast content.
Conclusion
Podcasting has become a major feature of contemporary society and has emerged as a means to support learning on a variety of different topics and issues. Podcasts can be used as an evolving educational approach that can benefit a variety of different learners. Podcasts enable information to reach a huge range of different listeners and their flexible approach enables people to consume content when it best suits their needs. Podcasts have the potential to become power platforms to disseminate innovations in care, alongside evidence-based practice. Using podcasts presents an opportunity to enhance education around HIV care in order to improve outcomes for people accessing care.
KEY POINTS
- The COVID-19 pandemic presented HIV services with a challenge: to come up with new ways of sharing educational content
- Podcasting presents a good opportunity for creating and sharing information, given the popularity, useability and accessibility of the format
- The focus of the HIV Matters podcast was to showcase innovation and best practice within the field of HIV care, through conversations led by experts
- The overall aim of the podcast series is to raise awareness of the healthcare challenges that people living with HIV face and to explore innovations in care to help address current concerns
CPD reflective questions
- Reflect on the advantages that podcasts offer – and any potential disadvantages – as a way of providing educational material, both for health professionals and for people living with long-term conditions
- Can you identify any podcasts of relevance to your practice?
- Is there a gap for a podcast in your area of practice? Think about the topics that you might be interested in listening to