Impact of an Online Survivorship Primer on Clinician Knowledge and Intended Practice Changes

Abstract

The number of adult cancer survivors in the USA is expected to double by the year 2050. A call for increased survivorship care and provider training came from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in the form of a landmark report in 2006. A shortage of physicians complicates the burden of survivorship care. The purpose of this effort was to design, develop, and evaluate a fully accredited, evidence-based continuing medical education (CME) and continuing education (CE) intervention to address the established knowledge gap for breast cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma survivorship education. Delivered through the Medscape Education (WebMD) platform, the course covered epidemiology, survivor issues, and currently available guidelines using illustrative patient cases. Knowledge gain was evaluated using a pretest-posttest design. Program evaluation was assessed by survey. Additional areas examined included post-intervention inquiry regarding expected changes to clinical practice. The results of this educational intervention demonstrated the effectiveness of internet-based CME/CE for cancer survivorship. Learning gain was significant (p < 0.0005). Effect size (d = 1.71) suggested extremely high practical significance, as the difference between the means was larger than 1 standard deviation. Significant knowledge gains were observed for each survivorship knowledge question across all clinical specialties studied. Nearly 100% of participants agreed that the course contributed to survivorship care and was organized effectively. Participants reported that the course was designed effectively (97.2%), and 68.1% responded in favor of adopting alternative communication strategies with patients and families upon completion of the course.