Journal Article

Competency assessment of the medical interns and nurses and documenting prevailing practices to provide family planning services in teaching hospitals in three states of India

Singh, Anju, Iyengar, Kirti, Gupta, Madhu, Verma, Madhur, Singh, Tarundeep, Kaur, Kiranjit

2019

Overview

The objectives of the study were to assess the knowledge and skills of medical interns and nurses regarding family planning (FP) services, and document the prevailing FP practices in the teaching hospitals in India. A cross-sectional study was conducted in three states (Delhi, Rajasthan, and Maharashtra) of India, among randomly selected 163 participants, including medical interns (n = 81) and in-service nurses (n = 82), during 2017. The semi-structured, pre-tested interview schedule, was used to assess the knowledge and status of training received; and objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) based checklist was used to evaluate the skills. About 60% of the interns and 48% of the nurses knew more than five contraceptives that could be offered to the clients. About 22% (11.1% interns and 33.3% nurses) respondents believed that contraceptives should not be given to a married woman coming alone, and 31.9% (17.3% interns and 46.3% nurses) respondents reported that it was illegal to provide contraceptives to unmarried people. Nearly 43.3% interns and 69.5% nurses refused to demonstrate intrauterine contraceptive device (IUCD) insertion in the dummy uterus as per OSCE, and among those who did, 12.3% interns and 18.3% nurses had failed. About 63% interns and 63.4% of nurses had observed IUCD insertion, and 12.3% interns and 17.1% had performed IUCD insertion, during their training. Knowledge and skills of interns and nurses regarding FP services were inadequate. The medical training during graduation or internship, and during the job, was found to be inadequate to provide quality FP services as per guidelines of nursing/medical council of India and Government of India on FP.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adult / Biology and Life Sciences / Birth control / Clinical Competence / Contraceptive Agents / Contraceptives / Cross-Sectional Studies / Curricula / Engineering and Technology / Family planning / Family planning services / Family Planning Services - education / Family Planning Services - methods / Family Planning Services - standards / Female / Hospitals / Humans / India / Insertion / Internship and Residency / Internship programs / Intrauterine Devices / Male / Management / Medical education / Medical examination / Medical interns / Medical personnel training / Medicine / Medicine and Health Sciences / Methods / Midwifery / Mortality / Nurses / Nursing / Nursing education / Nursing services / Obstetrics / Oral contraceptives / People and Places / Physicians / Population / Practice / Public health / Quality / Reproductive health / Reproductive sterilization / Schedules / Skills / Social Sciences / Social services / Teachers / Teaching hospitals / Training / Uterus / Womens health / Young Adult