Educational needs assessment of medical and midwifery students about prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV: a cross-sectional study.

Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT), is an important way of acquired immune deficiency virus (AIDS) transmission. Medical and midwifery students need to have sufficient knowledge in terms of MTCT. The aim of this study was to evaluate the educational needs of these students regarding MTCT of HIV. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 medical (extern and intern) and midwifery Bachelor (semester 4 and above) and Master students in Gonabad University of Medical Sciences in 2019. The real needs questionnaire on MTCT AIDS and the perceived needs questionnaire on MTCT were used for need assessment evaluation. Majority of the participants were female (77.5%) and single (65%). Study participants included 48.3% medical and 51.7% midwifery students. High real educational need was reported by 63.5% of medical and 36.5% of midwifery students. More than half of the participants (59.2%) felt a great need for education on MTCT of HIV. OF the areas of real educational needs, the highest and lowest scores were related to the areas of prevention and symptoms, respectively. Students in higher semesters had the highest percentage of real need compared to other students (p = 0.015). The real need for MTCT of HIV prevention was higher among medical students compared to midwifery students (p = 0.004). The observed high real and perceived needs of students, especially in the higher semesters and the field of medicine, necessitates the re-examination of their educational curricula.