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

Thomas Hoehn; Petra Genet; Percy Balan; Dirk Schramm; Pablo Emilio Verde; Alongkone Phengsavanh

doi:10.1055/s-0039-1678668

American Journal of Perinatology, Table of Contents

Am J Perinatol 2020; 37(04): 375-377
DOI: 10.1055/s-0039-1678668

Original Article

Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

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

Thomas Hoehn

¹Division of Neonatology and Pediatric Intensive Care Medicine, Department of General Pediatrics, Neonatology and Pediatric Cardiology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany

,

Petra Genet

²Department of Neonatology, Children's Hospital Luzern, Luzern, Switzerland

,

Percy Balan

³Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany

,

Dirk Schramm

⁴Department of General Pediatrics, Children's Hospital, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuernberg, Erlangen, Germany

,

Pablo Emilio Verde

⁵Coordination Center for Clinical Trials, Heinrich-Heine-University, Duesseldorf, Germany

,

Alongkone Phengsavanh

⁶Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Health Sciences, Vientiane, Laos

› Author Affiliations

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

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References

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