The impact of visiting operational departments on improving public health students’ learning about Rabies preventions, coetaneous Leishmaniasis, and serological tests of Brucellosis: a learning trip

Abstract

Background: Conventional teaching through lectures cannot be of much use and efficiency for achieving the educational goals of this course. Designing community-based teachings could be influential in students’ learning quality. Hence, the present study was conducted aiming to evaluate the impact of visiting the operational departments of Gonbad-e Kavous county healthcare center on improving public health students’ learning of educational objectives of the national infections disease combat program. Methods: Over a cross-sectional study, 97 students of continues and discontinuous bachelor’s majoring in public health visited the department of rabies prevention and control, coetaneous Leishmaniasis(CL) control, and the central laboratory of Gonbad-e Kavous county healthcare center over the first semester of the 2017-19 academic year. These students were introduced to the methods of treating Leishmaniasis patients and those bitten by animals as well as brucellosis diagnosis tests. The students were provided with the study's questionnaire after the visit so that they could fill it in. collected data entered SPSS v.15 statistical software and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and an independent t-test. Results: 61 (62.9%) of the students were female and 50 (51.5%) people were discontinuous bachelor’s students. The average satisfaction of students with the CL, rabies control and prevention, and Brucellosis test departments was 93.38%, 89.25%, and 82.69%, respectively. Besides, the total satisfaction of the mentioned visits was 92.61%. Discontinuous bachelor's students' satisfaction with rabies control and prevention and Brucellosis departments was significantly higher compared to continuous bachelor's students (P<0.05). Conclusion: results indicated that students’ satisfaction with visiting the operational departments of Gonbad-e Kavous county healthcare center was high. Hence, further such visits are recommended for other public health students.