A web-based Alcohol Clinical Training (ACT) curriculum: Is in-person faculty development necessary to affect teaching?

• Published in: BMC medical education Vol. 8; no. 1; p. 11
• Main Authors: Alford, Daniel P, Richardson, Jessica M, Chapman, Sheila E, Dubé, Catherine E, Schadt, Robert W, Saitz, Richard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 06.03.2008; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Alcoholism; Alcoholism - diagnosis; Alcoholism - prevention & control; Care and treatment; Clinical Competence; Curriculum; Data Collection; Education; Education, Medical, Continuing - methods; Faculty, Medical; Humans; Internet; Mass Screening; Models, Educational; Online health care information services; Physicians; Pilot Projects; Prospective Studies; Teaching - methods; Training; United States
• ISSN: 1472-6920; 1472-6920
• DOI: 10.1186/1472-6920-8-11

Physicians receive little education about unhealthy alcohol use and as a result patients often do not receive efficacious interventions. The objective of this study is to evaluate whether a free web-based alcohol curriculum would be used by physician educators and whether in-person faculty development would increase its use, confidence in teaching and teaching itself. Subjects were physician educators who applied to attend a workshop on the use of a web-based curriculum about alcohol screening and brief intervention and cross-cultural efficacy. All physicians were provided the curriculum web address. Intervention subjects attended a 3-hour workshop including demonstration of the website, modeling of teaching, and development of a plan for using the curriculum. All subjects completed a survey prior to and 3 months after the workshop. Of 20 intervention and 13 control subjects, 19 (95%) and 10 (77%), respectively, completed follow-up. Compared to controls, intervention subjects had greater increases in confidence in teaching alcohol screening, and in the frequency of two teaching practices - teaching about screening and eliciting patient health beliefs. Teaching confidence and teaching practices improved significantly in 9 of 10 comparisons for intervention, and in 0 comparisons for control subjects. At follow-up 79% of intervention but only 50% of control subjects reported using any part of the curriculum (p = 0.20). In-person training for physician educators on the use of a web-based alcohol curriculum can increase teaching confidence and practices. Although the web is frequently used for dissemination, in-person training may be preferable to effect widespread teaching of clinical skills like alcohol screening and brief intervention.