Introduction: Infection with the herpes simplex virus (HSV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease worldwide, which more often affects women than men. There are two types of this virus: HSV-1 and HSV-2. The first one principally causes orofacial herpes and the second one the genital herpes. One can acquire the infection anytime in life, yet it is mostly threatening during pregnancy or delivery, as it primarly affects the fetus. Typical symptoms of the infection are genital blisters. The HSV can be transmitted to the fetus or the newborn before, during or after the birth. The highest threat for the fetus represents mother's first infection during pregnancy. If there are active sores present on the mother's genitals at the beginning of the delivery or during the burst of the fetus membranes for more than four hours, it is advised to perform a C-section to finish the delivery. The most common method in the diagnostic microbiology is the proof of viral nucleid acido of the agent through the method of polymerase chain reaction. The infection is most commonly cured with the medicament acyclovir. Purpose: The aim of the diploma thesis is to present the HSV, setting the focus on the pregnant women and their newborns. Furthermore, we would like to research to what extent are the final-year students of the study programmes Midwifery and Nursing at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ljubljana, familiar with this topic. Methods: The theoretical part of the diploma thesis is based on the descriptive method, which comprises the analysis of literature, which was obtained from online databases Google Scholar, Medline, PubMed, ScienceDirect and SpringerLink, as well as from the libraries of the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of health sciences in Ljubljana and from the Škofja Loka Public Library Ivan Tavčar. A questionnaire, which was developed on the open source application that enables services for online surveys 1ka, was used as the quantitative method to gain the data, presented in the empiric part. The questionnaire consisted of 36 questions, which were formed based on the data from the theoretical part of the diploma thesis. It was distributed to the final-year students of the study programmes Midwifery and Nursing at the Faculty of Health Sciences. Results: The research showed a difference in the knowledge about the infection with HSV during pregnancy and with newborns between students from the Midwifery and Nursing final-year study programmes. The average score of the Midwifery final-year students was 19,97, whereas the final-year students of Nursing scored the average of 15,51 out of 29 points possible. The participants from both study programmes share the opinion that the NIJZ should keep a record on the number of infected pregnant women and newborns. Besides, more attention should be given to the infection with HSV during the studies at the Faculty of Health Sciences. Discussion and conclusion: A 60 % standard was set to simplify the evaluation of results. This percentage represents a satisfactory level of knowledge about the infection with HSV. Only the students from the Midwifery study programme reached this level, scoring 69 % points on average. This means that they obtain satisfactory knowledge about the infection with HSV during pregnancy and with newborns by the end of their study. The participating students from the Nursing study programme did not reach the set standard. These results were obtained from the Mann-Whitney U-test. 95 % of participants think that NIJZ should keep the record of infected mothers and newborns. 26 (77 %) final-year students of the Midwifery study programme share the opinion that they should be better informed about the infection with HSV of pregannt women and newborns during their study. 22 (56 %) final-year students of the Nursing study programme think they should obtain more general knowledge from this field. To conclude, health workers should be better educated on the discussed topic.
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