Evidence-based migraine therapy: learning needs and knowledge assessment

One of the primary goals of continuing medical education (CME) is to enhance the learners' performance, and a major goal of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is to improve knowledge of current best care. This paper overviews the use of a Learning Needs and Knowledge Assessment tool to highlight the potential learning needs and knowledge of neurologists and to focus the issues, interest and interactions of neurologists in a workshop on EBM migraine therapy. Virtually all neurologists felt they used evidence-based medicine in their daily practice. Surprisingly, 50% of neurologists agreed that they were uncertain which triptan to use. The great majority of neurologists felt that the triptans were not all equally efficacious. Our survey identified significant knowledge gaps among neurologists regarding how to appraise the validity of evidence from a randomized clinical trial, and with regard to what are the most clinically useful measures of benefit in clinical trials.