Educational interventions to improve the effectiveness in clinical competence of general practitioners: problem-based versus critical reading-based learning

Clinical competence was evaluated in general practitioners assigned to three groups based on the educational interventions used: 1) critical reading intervention; 2) problem based learning intervention; and 3) no intervention (control group, which continued clinical practice as normal). The effect on the clinical competence of general practitioners was evaluated in three dimensions: the cognitive dimension, via a self-administered questionnaire; the habitual behavioral dimension, via information from patient’s medical records; and the affective dimension, through interviews with patients. A paired Student′s？t-test was used to evaluate the changes in the mean clinical competence scores before and after the intervention, and a 3 x 2 ANOVA was used to analyze groups, times and their interaction.Nine general practitioners participated in the critical reading workshop, nine in the problem-based learning workshop, and ten were assigned to the control group. The participants exhibited no significant differences in clinical competence measures at baseline, or in socio-demographic or job characteristics (p？>？0.05). Significant improvements in all three dimensions (cognitive, 45.67 vs 54.89; habitual behavioral, 53.78 vs 82.33; affective, 4.16 vs 4.76) were only observed in the problem-based learning group after the intervention (p？>？0.017).While no differences in post-intervention scores were observed between groups, we conclude that problem-based learning can be effective, particularly in a small-group context. Indeed, problem-based learning was the only strategy to induce a significant difference between pre– and post- intervention scores for all three CC dimensions.