TITLE:
The Impact of a Real-Life Inflammatory Bowel Disease Education Course for Brazilian Physicians from the Perspective of Its Participants
AUTHORS:
Rodrigo Fedatto Beraldo, Julio Pinheiro Baima, Jaqueline Ribeiro de Barros, Fernanda Lofiego Renosto, Rogerio Saad-Hossne, Ligia Yukie Sassaki
KEYWORDS:
Continuing Medical Education, Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Inflammatory Bowel Disease
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Gastroenterology,
Vol.11 No.9,
September
2,
2021
ABSTRACT: Background: Physicians must acquire the necessary skills to provide Inflammatory
Bowel Disease (IBD) patients with state-of-the-art clinical
care, aiming to improve patient’s quality of life and disease outcomes. Purpose: To describe the queries and experiences of doctors enrolled in an
IBD education course and to evaluate the impact of the course. Methods: A retrospective study included 100 physicians, of which 78 attended the course.
A questionnaire was applied evaluating how the course had an impact on their
IBD-knowledge. The 20-hour-course consisted of practical “real-life” activities
and theoretical discussions. Results: The majority of doctors’ expertise
was in gastroenterology (53%) and coloproctology (44%). A significant portion
had no experience with biological therapy for ulcerative colitis (19.4%) or
Crohn’s disease (5.05%). The main topics doctors wanted to discuss were biological
therapy (93%), new drugs (74%) and differential diagnosis (64%). A considerable
number of physicians did not feel confident at prescribing biological therapy
before the course (44.4%), a percentage that decreased to 8.5% after the course
(p Discussion: The
ideal course should have a practical and theoretical component, as well as the support of an experienced multidisciplinary team.
A real-life practical-theoretical IBD course proved a success at increasing IBD
knowledge.