BACKGROUND: Medical students should have adequate knowledge on tuberculosis (TB) and national guidelines pertaining to its control, which is a major public health problem in developing countries. The present study aims to evaluate the knowledge on TB and Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) among medical interns and the change in the level of knowledge following the dissemination of self-directed learning (SDL) modules using an e-learning tool (WhatsApp).
METHODS: A prospective, nonrandomized, pre- and posttest study was done among 124 medical interns in a private medical college during July-August 2019. A semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire was prepared and filled by the interns in the pretest. Following the educational intervention, the same questionnaire was administered and posttest data were collected. The pre- and posttest results were expressed in frequency and percentage. Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare the change in the total mean score of knowledge using the e-learning tool following the dissemination of SDL modules.
RESULTS: The mean age of the interns was 22.82 ± 0.82 years. Of the total 124 interns, 60 (48.3%) had heard about the recent changes in RNTCP. The Internet (25.8%) and textbooks (23.4%) were the most common source of recent information regarding TB and RNTCP. The mean pretest score was 12.9 ± 3.08, which increased to 15.3 ± 2.62 during the posttest (z = -9.75, P < 0.05) following the intervention.
CONCLUSIONS: The knowledge regarding TB and RNTCP among the interns was inadequate. The usage of an e-learning tool \"WhatsApp\" was found to be effective in improving the knowledge in posttest as compared to pretest.