Effect of Integrated Management of Childhood Illness Training on Medical Student's Knowledge and Clinical Skills

Child health improvement is one of the most important indexes in health programs among all countries. One of the eight millennium development goals for 2015 is reduction of child mortality. Based on WHO recommendation Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) is one of the most effective strategies to reduce under five mortality rates. In this study, we tried to compare knowledge and clinical skills about most common childhood illnesses among medical students after IMCI training with control group. We performed a control trial on two medical intern student groups who were training in pediatric department. Our study was done in Zahedan University of Medical sciences in 2014.We evaluated 18 students in first group (control) and 19 students in second group (intervention). Control group was trained based on routine program education and intervention group educated both routine program and IMCI guideline. We observed significant differences in knowledge score between control and intervention group (P<0.001). Also skill score about management of danger signs in intervention group was significantly higher than control group (P<0.001). IMCI training can be a logical way to improve education quality in pediatric department. Medical students can improve their knowledge and skills effectively through this training.