One year to act against syphilis – Brazil (IFMSA-Brazil)

Name of the activity: One year to act against syphilis

Country/NMO: Brazil (IFMSA-Brazil)

Program: HIV/AIDS & Other STIs

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

The project consists of three main pillars: teaching, research and extension.
The part that refers to teaching is present in the training that will be held with medical students and later with the Community Health Agents and is related to learning about infectious diseases, with a great focus on syphilis in the city of Cuiabá.
The research deals with the questionnaires applied to test the students’ knowledge about the prior knowledge they have about the subject and this same questionnaire will be used in the family health posts to test the quality of the information carried by the agents, also the same questionnaire should be applied at the end of the actions to test the effectiveness of the project.
The extension is directly related to the qualification of the Community Health Agents to provide a higher quality service and, therefore, to benefit the local population.

Focus area:

Prevention of all STIs or are specific STIs, STI education or training for future health-care professions, Ensuring access to treatment for people living with HIV or other STIs

Problem statement:

Syphilis is an infectious disease with a high transmission power, which makes it very frequent in contemporary society. Due to the high capacity of contagion, the onset of this disease has gradually increased in Brazil, and Cuiabá has become an endemic region. In addition, there is a huge risk for women who become pregnant while having syphilis, since this type of gestation can cause several complications to the fetus, being one of the possibilities of being born with congenital syphilis. For these reasons, prophylaxis and treatment should be explored, both among medical professionals already trained and among those who are still graduating. Therefore, a research on the knowledge of medical students is a matter of great importance so that it can analyze aquality of information of these, serving of this research of instrument for the improvement of the quality of information that these are acquired during the course and, consequently, to improve the quality of syphilis prevention and therapy.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

Medical students
Community health agents

Objectives and indicators of success:

To collect data about the level of knowledge about syphilis among medical students of the Federal University of Mato Grosso in the city of Cuiabá.

Analyze the data of the questionnaires statistically, correlating the level of
with the semester that the medical student is attending.

Assess the level of medical students’ knowledge about syphilis.

Methodology:

The project was executed in two stages. The first took place from a training course with 19 medical students who participated, later, of the extensive action carried out in the classrooms of the Medicine Faculty of the Federal University of Mato Grosso.

The content addressed themes like “How to promote students to transmit knowledge to different realities in the Family Health Posts “.

In a second moment, the students were treined into syphilis with a generally approach to disease. The subjects were:

1. Epidemiology, clinical picture, forms of contagion,
2. Diagnosis
3. Treatment.

These subjects were taught by a Family and Community Physician. The second phase of the project took place in the Family health clinics in the city of Cuiabá.
These places were chosen according to their availability and with the release of the Department of Health, required release prior to visits happen.

In these posts the medical students, previously trained, informed the Community Health Agents about syphilis, through the wheel of conversation method. Three visits were made to 3 different Family Health Centers, with 16 medical students. As each student performed at least 2 visits.

During the visits, at least one of the coordinators were present. Thus, they were responsible for guiding the discussion. In all the units an initial resistance of the Community Health Agents was perceived. In addition, it took a few minutes for the interactions to take place with higher quality.

During the talks, it was found that the Community Health Agents already had great knowledge about thematic. In addition to the actions, a survey was carried out at the Medicine Faculty with the students from the first to the eighth curricular unit (UC) through a questionnaire on syphilis in general.

The research was conducted after the favorable opinion of the Ethics Committee
and Research at the Júlio Muller University Hospital. The sample space was 100
students divided among the eight UCs randomly chosen.

These questionnaires were analyzed statistically and correlated with the students’ level of knowledge according the semester. The results were disclosed in the form of articles in congresses such as the Brazilian Congress of Medical Education and the Brazilian Congress of Family Medicine and Community.

Plans for evaluation:

During the talks, it was found that the Community Health Agents already had great knowledge about thematic. In addition to the actions, a survey was carried out at the Medicine Faculty with the students from the first to the eighth curricular unit (UC) through a questionnaire on syphilis in general.

The research was conducted after the favorable opinion of the Ethics Committee
and Research at the Júlio Muller University Hospital. The sample space was 100
students divided among the eight UCs randomly chosen.