Preliminary Evaluation of Continuing Medical Education-Based Versus Clinic-Based Sexually Transmitted Disease Education Interventions for Primary Care Practitioners

Background: Although great emphasis has been placed on educating the public regarding HIV and sexually trasmitted disease (STD) prevention, equally important is provider education, as primary care and other health care practitioners have considerable potential for patient education. Recent reviews of the continuing medical education (CME) literature^1,2 have proposed the need for innovative educational approaches, suggesting limited support for the effectiveness of traditional didactic 1-day or shorter conferences that do not specifically involve enabling or reinforcing approaches such as role modeling, rehearsal, and case discussion.² Purposes: To examine short-term (2-month) and long-term (12-month) effects of the interventions with regard to STD knowledge, attitudes toward STD/HIV risk assessment, and frequency of both STD diagnosis and STD patient education and counseling. Methods: Pre- and postintervention (2-month and 12-month) data were obtained from a CME conference (n = 32) and 3 Clinic Workshop interventions (n = 93) held in South Texas. Results: Consistent pre-post gains in outcome measures were found in both CME and CW models and among both STD practitioners and nonpractitioners among participants with lower initial knowledge or practice levels. Analyses did not support the posited facultative effect of having multiple staff members from specific clinics in the CW condition. Conclusions: For both models, significant gains from baseline were found among those with initially lower knowledge/practice levels for knowledge and attitude dimensions, with the largest gains observed for patient education/counseling frequency.