Objective: to discover what midwives in one region in Turkey know about cold-chain equipment.
Design: a descriptive interview study.
Setting: primary health-care units in Antalya, Turkey.
Participants: 340 midwives working in 35 primary health-care units between March and April 2005.
Findings: all participants were women and their mean age was 34 years (standard deviation [SD]=5.24). Eighty (23.5%) of the midwives had worked for 10 years or less, 109 (32.1%) for 11-15 years, and 151 (44.4%) for 16 years or more. Most of the midwives who had worked for 11-15 years (n=105, 96.3%), or had worked for 10 years or less (n=77, 96.3%), were aware of the need to keep vaccines in a refrigerator between 2-8 degrees C, but 63 (42.3%) of the midwives who had worked for 16 years or more did not know the length of time vaccines that had never been used could be stored under primary health-care-centre conditions.
Conclusion: most midwives in this research had adequate knowledge of the cold chain. However, with continuing education, knowledge deficits can be corrected, and awareness of their roles and responsibilities can be increased to achieve one of Turkey's priority goals for the 21st century.