Obstetrical Emergencies: Bridging The Knowledge Gap-Educating Future Nurses

Emergency obstetric care is a set of critical life saving functions provided by a health care facility. Midwives and Doctors have to be vigilant to meet the emergencies to promote maternal health, pregnancy safety, proper delivery and follow-up care. Illiteracy, poverty and lack of access to health care and transport, prevent many women from adequate antenatal, intra-natal or postnatal care. Midwives and health care providers can manage obstetrical emergencies successfully with adequate and updated knowledge and skill. The present study aimed to find the final-year nursing students’ knowledge, in managing high risk pregnancy, intra-natal and postpartum complications. The purpose of this study was to check the understanding of nursing student’s before and after reading the booklet, if the booklet helped to improve knowledge and find any association between knowledge and various demographic variables. The design was a pre-experimental one-group pre-test and post-test design. By using, convenience sampling techniques, 53 B.Sc. nursing and GNM students, were enrolled in the study from a selected College at Sitapur. A pre-test was conducted by a structured knowledge questionnaire, an informational booklet was explained thereafter, and post-test was done on the eighth day. After the intervention, students showed an increased mean score of post-test 21.92 (SD 3.27) comparing with mean pre-test score of 15.36 (SD 2.13). According to the paired t-test (t-value 12.24, p < 0.0001) the booklet was highly effective in improving knowledge regarding management of obstetrical emergencies among final year nursing students of selected college at Sitapur, U.P.