WeChat mini program in laboratory biosafety education among medical students at Guangzhou Medical University: a mixed method study of feasibility and usability.

BACKGROUND: Laboratory biosafety should be a priority in all healthcare institutions. In traditional laboratory safety teaching students typically receive knowledge passively from their teachers without active involvement. The combination of experiential learning and mobile learning may provide students with greater engagement, retention, and application of knowledge. To address this issue, we developed and conducted a convergent mixed methods study to assess the feasibility and usability of a WeChat mini program (WMP) named WeMed for laboratory biosafety education for medical laboratory students at Guangzhou Medical University (GMU). METHODS: The study was conducted between November 2022 and October 2023 among second-year undergraduate students at GMU. It involved the concurrent collection, analysis, and interpretation of both qualitative and quantitative data to assess feasibility and usability. In the quantitative strand, two evaluations were conducted via online surveys from students (n = 67) after a four-week study period. The System Usability Scale (SUS) was used to evaluate usability, while self-developed questions were used to assess feasibility. Additionally, a knowledge test was administered 6 months after the program completion. In the qualitative strand, fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted, whereby a reflexive thematic analysis was utilized to analyze the interview data. RESULTS: The overall SUS score is adequate (M = 68.17, SD = 14.39). The acceptability of the WeMed program is in the marginal high range. Most students agreed that WeMed was useful for learning biosafety knowledge and skills (13/14, 93%), while 79% (11/14) agreed it was easy to use and they intended to continue using it. After 6 months, a significant difference in the knowledge test scores was observed between the WeMed group (n = 67; 2nd year students) and the traditional training group (n = 90; 3rd year students). However, the results should be interpreted cautiously due to the absence of a pretest. CONCLUSION: The combination of experiential learning and mobile learning with WMP is a feasible tool for providing laboratory biosafety knowledge and skills. Ongoing improvements should be made in order to increase long-term acceptance.

A meta-analysis of the accuracy of Xpert MTB/RIF in diagnosing intestinal tuberculosis.

OBJECTIVE: A detection method with high efficiency and accuracy is urgently needed in clinical work. The purpose of our study was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay for intestinal tuberculosis (ITB). METHODS: We searched PubMed and 4 other databases from their establishment to July 19, 2022, for published essays of diagnostic performance in which Xpert MTB/RIF was used to test patients with clinically suspected ITB. An assessment of the quality of the selected literature was conducted using QUADAS-2. We built forest plots by MetaDiSc software. RESULTS: The pooled Xpert MTB/RIF sensitivity was 48%, and the specificity was 99%. Moreover, the positive likelihood ratio for ITB diagnosis was 21.61. The negative likelihood ratio was 0.54. There were substantial variations between the study estimates of sensitivity (I2 = 87.6%) and specificity (I2 = 82.4%). CONCLUSION: Intestinal TB is detected with limited diagnostic sensitivity by Xpert MTB/RIF but with high specificity. An Xpert-positive result may facilitate the rapid identification of ITB cases. Nevertheless, a negative result has less certainty in excluding the disease.