Guidelines on Gestational and Congenital Syphilis: insights of health professionals in Bolívar (Colombia)

Objectives: To describe the knowledge, appropriateness and practices regarding the evidence-based “Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) for the comprehensive management of gestational syphilis (GS) and congenital syphilis (CS)”.

Material and methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study including general practitioners, specialists and nurses working at 52 healthcare institutions in the Bolivar Department (Colombia) who provided prenatal control or neonatal care in 2020. Convenience sampling was used. A digital questionnaire was administered to collect sociodemographic information, assessed knowledge, appropriateness and practices in terms of the evidenced-based “Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG)" mentioned in the objectives. A descriptive analysis followed.

Results: A total of 101 workers were included. There are deficiencies associated with the correct use of the inverse algorithm of diagnosis (48 %) and GS followup (77 %), management of the patient with a history of systemic manifestation allergies (31 %) and treatment of GS (61 %) and CS (10 %). The recommendation of not using the penicillin test in patients with no history of systemic allergies is considered of little benefit (60 %). 23 % of the workers do not use rapid tests and 44 % of the specialists administer syphilis treatment to the sexual partner.

Conclusions: It is important to intensify the training strategies for health personnel with emphasis on nurses and, as a matter of urgency, empower them in syphilis control activities. New and continuous national and regional evaluations of the implementation of these guidelines are needed to assess the indicators associated with the strategy for the elimination of this disease.