Evaluation of the retention of knowledge, skills and competency of post-neonatal resuscitation training among house officers.

Introduction: The Neonatal Resuscitation Programme (NRP) was first introduced in Malaysia in 1996 to train doctors and nurses working in paediatrics and obstetrics departments who are involved with the care of newborns soon after delivery. Prompt and effective neonatal resuscitation has been documented to reduce mortality and neonatal asphyxia. The programme has been revised every five years and is now in the 8th edition. NRP training was made into a key performance indicator (KPI) by the Ministry of Health in 2016 for all house officers to be trained in this programme during their 2-year posting and this is usually conducted during the paediatric posting. This study aims to evaluate the retention of their knowledge, skills and competency at 3, 6, and 9 months after the initial NRP training.

Materials and methods: A total of 34 house officers were enrolled in the study on joining the paediatric unit of Hospital Kulim. They were given the "Textbook of NRP" to prepare for the theory paper that consisted of 30 multiplechoice questions (MCQs). Two to four weeks later they went through a day of training on the resuscitation of the newborn using low-fidelity simulation manikins. They were taught to recognise a newborn who needed resuscitation after delivery, prepared the equipment for resuscitation and learned the skills of resuscitation. The skills included the initial steps, bag valve mask ventilation, intubation, cardiac massage, umbilical vein cannulation and use of medications. They were also taught the performance of objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) A and B. They were evaluated at 3, 6, and 9 months after the completion of their training using the MCQs and the performance checklist in the NRP textbook.

Results: The results showed that there was a significant reduction in their knowledge retention as shown by their performance in multiple choice questions. Similarly, there was a significant loss of competency in their skills and competency in resuscitation using bag mask ventilation, intubation and performance of OSCE A and OSCE B. However, their performance at initial steps showed no significant reduction.

Conclusion: In view of the observed deterioration a refresher course in NRP before transferring out to the districts is recommended to improve their overall performance.