Immediate and Sustained Effect of Neonatal Teaching in a Perinatal Setting in Urban Laos

Abstract

Objective This study aimed to quantify knowledge on neonatal topics among obstetricians and pediatricians participating in a perinatal teaching program aimed at reducing neonatal mortality in Laos.

Study Design Obstetricians and pediatricians from Vientiane and the surrounding areas participated in a 1-week teaching program in obstetric and neonatal topics and responded to pre- and posttests questionnaires to quantify their knowledge.

Results Although questions were predominantly related to neonatal topics, obstetricians performed significantly better than pediatricians during the pretest. Both groups increased their knowledge significantly as quantified by the results of the posttest.

Conclusion The teaching program was effective in improving knowledge on perinatal mortality related topics of the participants. These results may be related to the fact that most of the obstetricians had participated in a structured teaching program previously, whereas the pediatricians did not. We thus speculate that there is a sustained effect of even a 1-week teaching program in neonatology even several years after the initial teaching.

Keywords

postgraduate teaching - obstetricians - pediatricians - pretest - posttest

Note

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

• References

• 1 Akseer N, Lawn JE, Keenan W. , et al. Ending preventable newborn deaths in a generation. Int J Gynaecol Obstet 2015; 131 (Suppl (Suppl. 01) S43-S48
• 2 Gaffey MF, Das JK, Bhutta ZA. Millennium development goals 4 and 5: past and future progress. Semin Fetal Neonatal Med 2015; 20 (05) 285-292
• 3 Schmidt S, Duangdala P, Saysanasongkham B. , et al. Neonatal mortality and morbidity in regional provincial hospitals in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos. J Trop Pediatr 2016; 62 (03) 213-219
• 4 Schmidt S, Bounnack S, Hoehn T. Neonatal mortality and morbidity in the post-implementation period of a neonatal teaching program in provincial hospitals in Laos. Public Health 2018; 154: 123-129
• 5 Narayan S, Mathai SS, Adhikari K, Bhandari A, Bawa KS. Effectiveness of teaching of neonatal resuscitation programme at a workshop for a mixed population of medical personnel. Med J Armed Forces India 2004; 60 (03) 244-246
• 6 Jefferies A, Simmons B, Ng E, Skidmore M. Assessment of multiple physician competencies in postgraduate training: utility of the structured oral examination. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract 2011; 16 (05) 569-577
• 7 Carlo WA, Goudar SS, Jehan I. , et al; First Breath Study Group. High mortality rates for very low birth weight infants in developing countries despite training. Pediatrics 2010; 126 (05) e1072 –e1080
• 8 Ntigurirwa P, Mellor K, Langer D. , et al. A health partnership to reduce neonatal mortality in four hospitals in Rwanda. Global Health 2017; 13 (01) 28
• 9 Walker D, Cohen S, Fritz J. , et al. Team training in obstetric and neonatal emergencies using highly realistic simulation in Mexico: impact on process indicators. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 2014; 14: 367
• 10 Chang YS, Coxon K, Portela AG, Furuta M, Bick D. Interventions to support effective communication between maternity care staff and women in labour: a mixed-methods systematic review. Midwifery 2018; 59: 4-16