Effect of a scaled-up quality improvement intervention on health workers' competence on neonatal resuscitation in simulated settings in public hospitals: A pre-post study in Nepal

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 4; p. e0250762
• Main Authors: Chaulagain, Dipak Raj, K C, Ashish, Wrammert, Johan, Brunell, Olivia, Basnet, Omkar, Malqvist, Mats
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 29-04-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Attitudes; Biology and Life Sciences; Care and treatment; Computer Simulation; Demographic aspects; education; Female; Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi; Health Knowledge; Health Personnel; Hospitals; Humans; Infant; Infant Mortality; Infants (Newborn); Male; Medical care; Medicine and Health Sciences; Nepal; Newborn; Pediatrics; Pediatrik; People and Places; Practice; Public; Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology; Quality Improvement; Quality management; Resuscitation; Social Sciences; Young Adult; Nepal
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250762

Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) training improves bag and mask ventilation and reduces neonatal mortality and fresh stillbirths. Quality improvement (QI) interventions can improve retention of neonatal resuscitation knowledge and skills. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of a scaled-up QI intervention package on uptake and retention of neonatal resuscitation knowledge and skills in simulated settings.
This was a pre-post study in 12 public hospitals of Nepal. Knowledge and skills of trainees on neonatal resuscitation were evaluated against the set standard before and after the introduction of QI interventions.
Altogether 380 participants were included for knowledge evaluation and 286 for skill evaluation. The overall knowledge test score increased from 14.12 (pre-basic) to 15.91 (post-basic) during basic training (p < 0.001). The knowledge score decreased over time; 15.91 (post-basic) vs. 15.33 (pre-refresher) (p < 0.001). Overall skill score during basic training (16.98 ± 1.79) deteriorated over time to 16.44 ± 1.99 during refresher training (p < 0.001). The proportion of trainees passing the knowledge test increased to 91.1% (post-basic) from 67.9% (pre-basic) which decreased to 86.6% during refresher training after six months. The knowledge and skill scores were maintained above the set standard (>14.0) over time at all hospitals during refresher training.
HBB training together with QI tools improves health workers' knowledge and skills on neonatal resuscitation, irrespective of size and type of hospitals. The knowledge and skills deteriorate over time but do not fall below the standard. The HBB training together with QI interventions can be scaled up in other public hospitals.
This study was part of the larger Nepal Perinatal Quality Improvement Project (NePeriQIP) with International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number, ISRCTN30829654, registered 17th of May, 2017.