Teresa Seto, MD, MEd
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
OBJECTIVES: Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) was designed to teach basic neonatal resuscitation in low-resource countries. This study was designed to evaluate the acquisition of knowledge and skills following HBB training and correlation of learner characteristics to performance in a Spanish-speaking setting.
METHODS: Thirty-one physicians and 39 nurses completed HBB training at a Honduran community hospital. Trainee knowledge and skills were evaluated before and after HBB training using a multiple-choice question (MCQ) test, bag-mask ventilation (BMV) skills test, and two objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs).
RESULTS: HBB training resulted in significant increases in mean scores for MCQ, BMV, and OSCE B (p ≤0.03). Time to initiation of effective BMV decreased from a mean of 74.8 to 68.4 seconds. Although physicians scored higher on pre-test MCQ and BMV, nurses demonstrated a greater mean difference in scores after training. OSCE B scores pre and post training were similar between professions.
CONCLUSIONS: HBB training resulted in significant gains in neonatal resuscitation knowledge and skills. Further studies are necessary to determine how to sustain HBB knowledge and skills over time, tailor the course to learner characteristics, and whether HBB translates to improvements in clinical practice.
