Introduction: A screening test for a certain disease is the testing of a seemingly healthy population with the intention to find those who have the disease. Screening tests are part of secondary preventive activities, during which diseases are detected before the symptoms of the disease appear. A positive screening test result is always followed by diagnostic testing to confirm the diagnose of the disease. In Slovenia, neonatal screening tests are performed in all maternity hospitals within 48-72 hours after the birth of the child. A sample of the new-born’s blood is taken as part of the early detection of rare diseases, blood oxygen saturation is measured and an otoacoustic emission hearing test (TEOAE) is performed. A hip ultrasound scan is not mandatory after birth, but it is performed if risk factors or congenital anomalies are detected. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to prepare the questionnaires based on the published medical literature about the neonatal screening and investigate the level of knowledge among students of the Faculty of health sciences of Ljubljana. Second- and third-year students of midwifery and nursing, as well as those students that have completed their studies in these two fields but have not graduated yet, participated in this research. We wanted to investigate the differences in knowledge between the fields of study (nursing and midwifery) as well as the differences between second- and third-year students and those that have concluded their studies but have not graduated yet. We were also interested in the level of knowledge of the whole group of the students and whether they would need more knowledge regarding neonatal screening tests. Methods: In the first part, a descriptive method of work was used. To find scientific articles, the following electronic databases were used: PubMed, Cobiss.si and Google Scholar. Literature search was limited to Slovene and English, most of the literature had been published in the last ten years. A descriptive method was also used in the second part of the thesis. Data collection took place via the 1Ka online survey, which was available between 14th April 2020 and 13th May 2020. Results: After completing the analysis of the data obtained through the online survey, we reached the conclusions that the differences in knowledge between the two fields of study are very small. Students from midwifery have scored 11.8 points on average and nursing students have scored 11.4 points on average from all possible 20 points. The level of awareness of screening tests among students of different years of study is very much alike, the students of the upper years of study do not possess a significantly greater knowledge of the topic than the students of the lower years. Overall, the students lack knowledge of national screening tests. Discussion and conclusion: Results were compared using Mann-Whitney U-test, where we confirmed that there is no significant difference between study programmes and years of study. For easier interpretation, we included only the tests that scored over 60% of all possible points. Only students of the third year of midwife study programme have scored over the minimal limit. 8 students from midwife study programme (14%) think that they have enough knowledge, while 48 students (83%) think that they do not have enough knowledge on the topic. Similar picture is in nursing study programme where only 4 students (10%) think that they have enough knowledge, whereas 33 students (79%) feel that they could improve their knowledge. Overall, we can claim that the students would need more theoretical and practical knowledge on the screening tests.
|
