Educational interventions to improve medical students' knowledge of acute pain management: a randomized study

It has been consistently documented that the treatment of acute pain is inadequate. Education of medical students is an obvious strategy to improve this. We therefore conducted a study in which 217 medical students were randomized into one of three groups: a control group (no intervention) and two intervention groups (education with e-learning alone or e-learning combined with simulation-based training). We hypothesized that the combined intervention would be superior to no intervention and e-learning alone. All students completed the same multiple choice questionnaire twice with an interval of approximately 1 week. During this 1-week interval, students in the two intervention groups completed either an 45-min interactive case-based e-learning program, or the e-learning program and a simulation-based training. We showed that the theoretical knowledge about treatment of acute pain increased in both intervention groups but students who received the combined intervention felt more confident in the future handling of patients.