Participatory educational intervention: Cognitive and technical assessment of neonatal screening in nursing staff

Abstract

Introduction: Neonatal screening is a fundamental tool for the timely detection of various metabolic diseases in newborns, given that it provides the opportunity for treatment and a better quality of life.

Objective: To determine the before-and-after effect of an educational intervention on the neonatal screening technique.

Methodology: A quasi-experimental study of an educational intervention with nursing staff (52) from a primary care unit. A cognitive assessment was conducted before and after the intervention using a validated instrument (ICD, α = 0.8). An observation guide was used to assess the technical quality of the procedure. Data were analyzed using nonparametric tests to compare the mean range of 2 related samples and determine whether there were differences between them.

Results: 82.7% of the nursing staff was female, 61.5% had technical training, and 32.7% had a bachelor's degree. The relationship between the pre- and post-intervention measurements was weakly positive, which is why the association was not significant. Regarding the time taken to perform the newborn screening technique, there was a weakly positive and nonsignificant association.

Conclusions: The implementation of this study contributes to ensuring that all newborns in the institution and throughout Mexico have the opportunity to benefit from proper neonatal screening. This underscores the importance of maintaining the training and updating of healthcare personnel who perform neonatal screening.