Learning assessment of healthcare professionals enrolled in the improvement course on Evidence-based healthcare via teleconference

Tags: Poster
Rufino-Macedo C1
1Unifesp, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Background: Brazil has today one of the major mass teaching initiatives in Evidence-Based Healthcare for healthcare professionals. In December 2009, the third edition of the distance improvement course was initiated with about 2,900 enrollments. The 150-hour course, developed along awhole year,was given bymembers of Brazil Cochrane Center in the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital s Education & Research Institute, supported by Brazil Health Ministry. Students actively participated in the course through an Internet platform, which presented ancillary materials and tutored discussion forums for doubts solving and aids to develop research projects. Objective: Assessing the course effects on concept learnings and competency developments in Evidence-Based Practice; featuring the enrolled students social-economical profile, as well as their satisfaction level with the course. Methods: Learning was measured by two evaluations taken at the beginning and ending of the Internet-plataform course. Students first filled in a questionnaire about their profession, age, computer skills, etc. Afterwards, they answered to a 20-multiple-choice question evaluation about the contents exposed during the course. Question structure was based on existing concepts of knowledge and skills assessment in Evidence-Based Medicine, such as question formulation, available evidence search, evidence critical evaluation, among others. The research projects carried out and an interview on the students satisfaction with the course were also assessed. Results: For the partial results, we concluded that 800 students answered both evaluations. Satisfaction level with the course was around 97%, and 99% of students would recommend the course to a colleague. In March 2010, a new edition of this course was initiated with 2,600 enrollments, reflecting the course impact on the professionals lives. Complete results will be presented at the proper time. This experience is clearly reproducible in differente scenarios.