Strategies of active participation in continuing education. Results of a course of clinical scenario resolution

Abstract

Objectives: the utility of incorporating strategies of participation of the students in a continued education course
was evaluated. Methods: eight pediatric clinical scenes were selected, those that implied diagnostic and/or therapeutic decisions making, for those that the evidence available did not allow to establish precise recommendations. Before de course, the students received documentation of each scene with a clinical case, a series of questions, a guide of search and interpretation and some recent related articles. In the course, the
answers to the questions were gathered, before and after the communications made by a group of experts. The suitability and agreement of the answers with respect to the experts' recommendations were analyzed. Results: From the 126 students, data of 105 initial and 83 final questionnaires were obtained. The agreement of the answers between students and experts increased globally from the initial to the final surveys. If the questions of each scene with an only recommended answer were considered, this increase was from 56.2% (IC95%: 53.9 to 58.5) to 76.3% (IC95%: 74 to 78.5). The articles sent along with the clinical scenes influenced in general little or nothing in answers (medium 69.7%; rank 50 to 78.8%), except for the scene 3, in which a Spanish Clinical Practice Guideline influenced in half of the answers. Nevertheless, the opinion of the experts influenced much or enough in answers (medium 69.9%; rank 48.1 to 87.5%).