ContinuumAEP and the acquisition of competencies in Pediatrics

According to the Global Pediatric Education Consortium (GPEC), paediatricians need to acquire and maintain a set of competencies in their daily practice. Continuum, the online training platform of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics, has developed training activities to explore and achieve these competencies.

Cross-sectional study of the training activities delivered on Continuum over eleven years and the competencies assigned to each of them. The period 2013-2024 was analysed through a descriptive analysis of competency coverage.

A total of 12 048 GPEC competencies were assigned to 1118 training activities, with an average of 10.8 competencies per activity. Of the 8509 competencies available in the Continuum competency matrix, 5718 were addressed at least once. This amounts to 67.2% of the total (95% confidence interval [CI], 66.2 %-68.2%). Each competency was assigned an average of 2.11 times (95% CI, 2.07-2.15). There was considerable heterogeneity in the coverage by area of competence. We ought to highlight the high coverage (>90%) for the areas of "Professionalism", "Patient Safety and Quality Improvement", "Musculoskeletal Disorders", "Allergy", "Dermatology" and "Nutrition" and the low coverage (<10%) for "Self-Leadership and Practice Management" and "Gynecology".

In the period under study, the Continuum platform enabled the attainment of more than two-thirds of the competencies required for pediatric practice as established by the GPEC. We identified asymmetries between knowledge areas. These should be considered to prioritize access to underrepresented competencies.