Effect of Integrated Teaching on Learning Clinical Skills among Rural Trained Birth Attendants Participating in a Continuing Midwifery Education Workshop

Evidences reveal that continuing education courses for employees have not really influenced the improvement of clinical skills and patient care. This implies the need to alter educational methods of such courses. Hence, this study was conducted to assess the effect of integrated teaching on learning clinical skills among rural trained birth attendants participating in a continuing midwifery education course.

In this experimental study, 63 participants of a continuing education course were randomly divided into two groups of integrated education and conventional one. Data was collected using a questionnaire and Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). After pre- test, an 8 hour specific educational program for each group about midwifery emergencies was conducted for two days. The participants’ skills were evaluated instantly and one month after the course by OSCE.

The pre-test mean score was not significantly different between two groups, but the mean scores of integrated method were significantly higher than conventional one regarding post-test (60.09 versus 48.23) and consistency test (51.16 versus 40.55)(P=0.0001 in both cases). The skill score difference between pre-test and post-test and the same difference in consistency test in integrated teaching was significantly higher than conventional method (P=0.0001 in both cases).

Our findings suggest that consistency in learning and a higher level of skills was observed in the integrated method. Hence, it is proposed to apply such methods in continuing education workshop to teach clinical skills.