A short-term educational program improved physicians’ adherence to guidelines for COPD and asthma in Shanghai

A prescription survey was performed in a random sample of 100 COPD and asthma outpatients to assess their pharmacological therapy. Then, an educational program was conducted in young pulmonary physicians from 83 hospitals in Shanghai. The training course was divided into 7 sessions of 2？hours delivered over 4？days from July 2010 to August 2011. Three months later, all of the participants were asked to take a written examination to assess the efficiency of training.Prescription survey among the patients indicated the prescriptions are not consistent with the recommendations of current GOLD and GINA guidelines. The mainly existing issue is the overuse of inhaled glucocorticosteroid. For the educational program, 161 pulmonary physicians have attended the training course, and 110 clinicians finished the tests with an attendance rate of 68.3%. Although most of the clinicians recognized the increasing burden of COPD and asthma, they do not know well about the core elements of guidelines and their clinical practice is not fully in agreement with current recommendations. Through crossover comparison, our results suggested clinicians’ knowledge of the guidelines was improved after training.We concluded that application of continuous educational programs among physicians might promote their adherence to guidelines, and by that improve the quality of healthcare.Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma are both chronic respiratory diseases characterized by the impairment of lung function, and they are also complex multi-component diseases accompanied with mental and physical co-morbidities [1,2]. In recent years, there has been increasing evidences suggesting that COPD and asthma are imposing enormous burden on patients, healthcare professionals and society in terms of morbidity, mortality, healthcare resources utilization and expense worldwide [3], especially in developing countries [4-9].Despite these striking statistics, the management of COPD and asthma is fa