An interactive web-based curriculum on evidence-based medicine: design and effectiveness.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Health Informatics
• Evidence-Based Medicine

Background:

• Medical education experts advocate for enhanced training in evidence-based medicine (EBM).
• There is a growing need for integrating e-learning technologies into medical curricula.
• An interactive, web-based curriculum was developed to address these needs in family medicine.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of an interactive, web-based EBM curriculum for medical students.
• To assess the impact of e-learning on students' skills in MEDLINE searching and applying EBM principles.
• To measure improvements in confidence and evidence retrieval abilities.

Main Methods:

• A 6-week family medicine clerkship involved 238 students randomly assigned to intervention (n=134) or control (n=104) groups.
• The intervention group received additional online training in MEDLINE searching, EBM skills, and calculating the number needed to treat (NNT).
• A case-control design with a post-clerkship test case evaluated the online curriculum's efficacy.

Main Results:

• Intervention students conducted more MEDLINE searches (13 vs. 3) and employed higher-quality search strategies (2.9 vs. 2.1).
• They demonstrated greater confidence, better identification of high-quality evidence (60% vs. 34%), and significantly improved NNT calculation skills (73% vs. 27%).
• Intervention students also reported increased peer learning during the clerkship.

Conclusions:

• E-learning effectively enhances medical students' ability to search MEDLINE for evidence-based practice criteria.
• The online curriculum leads to superior literature search strategies and identification of higher-quality evidence.
• Improved confidence and information retrieval skills were observed in students using the e-learning approach.