[The gap between research and practice--a survey among participants in continuing medical education events]

To investigate to which extent physicians participating in specialization and continuing medical education courses read clinical research articles and how relevant they deem this for their practical work.

Physicians participating in courses on homeopathy (n = 96), acupuncture (n = 79), naturopathy (n = 75), family medicine (n = 50) and internal medicine (n = 136) filled in a questionnaire. They were asked to what extent and how they kept themselves informed about clinical research, how their daily work was affected by clinical research and why they did not spend more time reading clinical research literature.

More than half of the participants (51%) reported they did not spend any time reading original research articles. Differences between the five groups of physicians were small. The proportion of physicians who considered the relevance of clinical trials for practical work as high or very high was 52% among participants of courses on homeopathy, 68% on acupuncture, 67% on naturopathy, 63% on family medicine and 81% in the internal medicine event. In all groups of physicians the relevance of clinical trials and meta-analyses to daily work was rated lower than that of personal experience, advice from colleagues, continuing medical education events, pathophysiological explanations, textbooks and guidelines. The large amount of time required to read original articles was reported as a major reason for the limited interest in clinical research.

Among the physicians participating in this survey clinical trials and meta-analyses were only of subordinate relevance for clinical decision making.