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Published on: August 30, 2018
Infectious diseases and antimicrobial prescribing: Online spaced education for junior doctors
V Menon1, A Chubaty2, K Clezy1
1Department of Infectious Diseases, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia; Prince of Wales Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Background:
Inappropriate antimicrobial prescribing may harm patients and drive antimicrobial resistance. Junior doctors' knowledge of infectious diseases and antimicrobial prescribing is inadequate. Online spaced case-based learning can improve knowledge.
Objective:
To develop infectious diseases and antimicrobial prescribing course content for online spaced education and assess its effectiveness and feasibility for junior doctors.
Methods:
Infectious diseases and antimicrobial course content was developed for an online spaced education platform (Qstream Inc., Burlington, MA). Junior doctors (postgraduate years 1-3) at two tertiary teaching hospitals in Sydney participated in the study. Course content was provided with Qstream at one hospital and at the other hospital via two face-to-face (FTF) tutorials from August to October 2017. Knowledge and self-confidence were compared before and after training within and between both cohorts.
Results:
Participation in the course was higher in the Qstream cohort with 48/127 (37.8%) completing the course compared with 44/110 (40%) attending one or both FTF sessions, of whom 22/110 (20%) attended both. Improvement in mean knowledge score from 69.7% to 81.5% in the Qstream cohort was significantly greater than the FTF cohort's minimal improvement from 67.6% to 67.9% (95% CI 2.79-20.33; P=0.01). In the Qstream cohort mean confidence rating (0-10) improvement from 5.14 to 6.55 was greater than the FTF group improvement from 5.37 to 5.85 (95% CI 0.132-1.171; P=0.02). Qstream feedback was very positive.
Conclusions:
Online spaced education in infectious diseases and antimicrobial prescribing was feasible, acceptable and effective for junior doctors. It has potential to reduce inappropriate antimicrobial prescribing and warrants further investigation.
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