Training-of-Trainers of Nurses and Midwives as a Strategy for the Reduction of Eclampsia-Related Maternal Mortality in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Background: Preeclampsia and eclampsia (PE/E) are major contributors to maternal and perinatal mortality in Nigeria. Despite the availability of current curriculum at Nigerian schools of nursing and midwifery; the knowledge on the management of PE/E among the students has remained poor. In order to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality in developing countries; targeted training and supportive supervision of frontline health care providers have been recommended. Methodology: A total of 292 tutors from 171 schools of nursing and midwifery participated in the training of the trainers' workshops on current management of PE/E across the country. Pre- and post-test assessments were administered. Six months after the training; 29 schools and 84 tutors were randomly selected for follow-up to evaluate the impact of the training. Results: Significant knowledge transfer occurred among the participants as the pretest/posttest analysis showed knowledge transmission across all the 13 knowledge items assessed. The follow-up evaluation also showed that the trained tutors conducted 19 step-down trainings and trained 157 other tutors in their respective schools. Subsequently; 2382 nursing and midwifery students were properly trained. However; six of the monitored schools (24.2) lacked all the essential kits for teaching on PE/E. Conclusion: Updating the knowledge of tutors leads to improved preservice training of the future generation of nurses and midwives. This will likely result in higher quality of care to patients and reduce PE/E-related maternal and perinatal mortality. However; there is need to provide essential training kits for teaching of student nurses and midwives