Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 6, 2025
Dried Blood Spot Collection of Health Biomarkers to Maximize Participation in Population Studies
Published on: January 28, 2014
Enhancing specimen collection skills for dried blood spots through an immersive virtual learning environment: a
Hafsa Majid1, Lena Jafri2, Shanzay Rehman2
1Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan. hafsa.majid@aku.edu.
Objective:
The quality of dried blood spot (DBS) specimens impacts newborn screening (NBS) results, hence proper training is crucial for DBS specimen collection. To address this, a training module for Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) and nurses was created on Moodle, a virtual learning environment (VLE). The purpose of this research was to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of this module.
Methodology:
Participants were trained on-site (March to December 2019), through online training sessions (January to June 2020), and the two training strategies were compared. Data analysis included the total number of participants, cost-effectiveness, trainer engagement, and the number of unacceptable samples collected by nurses/AHPs trained by the two strategies.
Results:
A total of 55 nurses/AHPs were trained on-site, while 79 nurses/AHPs completed the online module and received certificates through online VLE-based training. The trainer engagement and cost were more for onsite training. After online training, the specimen rejection rate was reduced from 0.84% (44 rejected out of 5220 total specimens collected) to 0.38% (15/3920).
Conclusions:
This study shows that using VLE-based DBS specimen collection training is feasible and effective for training nurses and AHPs.
