Free online program for PCPs boosts confidence in knee osteoarthritis care
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Key takeaways:
- The greatest gains in confidence were seen among participants with the least confidence at baseline.
- Participants overwhelmingly said they would recommend the program.
A free online training program for primary care providers focusing on knee osteoarthritis boosted participants’ confidence in diagnosing and managing the condition, according to data published in ACR Open Rheumatology.
“Despite available guidelines, [primary care providers (PCPs)] feel they lack knowledge to effectively treat OA and consider themselves underprepared to manage their patients’ OA,” Lisa A. Mandl, MD, MPH, of the Hospital for Special Surgery, in New York, and colleagues wrote.
“There are multiple practitioner-level barriers to implementing evidence-based [knee OA (KOA)] management,” they added. “The misperception that KOA pain is an inevitable part of aging can lead to the prioritization of other medical conditions, leaving KOA unaddressed. Misperceptions of the risks and benefits of various therapies for KOA also interfere with the initiation of evidence-based care. PCPs often find guidelines lack specifics on how recommendations can be easily translated into practice.”
To remedy this situation and improve primary care providers’ confidence in treating knee OA, Mandl and colleagues developed a free online training program. The team developed the program based on 2019 American College of Rheumatology guidelines and assessed participant confidence in knee OA knowledge and skills before and after completion.
The program consisted of three informational modules with 18 case-based multiple choice questions on knee OA diagnosis and management. It was designed using Caffarella’s integrative model for program development and incorporated “active learning with retrieval practice,” the researchers wrote. It was also designed to provide “mastery experiences,” which are thought to increase confidence, by requiring 80% correct answers to proceed, they added.
Participants were recruited via promotions on social media, by email and through medical association websites. Their confidence in knee OA knowledge and skills was measured on five-point scales, and a composite score combining confidence in all items was calculated.
Throughout the 9 months after launch in April 2022, a total of 353 participants — 41.9% focused on primary care, and 31.2% with more than 20 years in practice — completed the program. The remaining 69.1% of participants were non-physicians. Median completion time was 1 hour and 44 minutes.
After completion, the overall mean composite score rose from 83.1 to 109.4 (P < .001; effect size = 1.28; 95% CI, 1.12-1.45). According to the researchers, the greatest gains in confidence were seen among participants with the least confidence at baseline.
Overall, 93.4% of those who completed the program agreed or strongly agreed that its content was “useful and relevant to their scope of practice,” while 95.8% said they would recommend it to others, the researchers wrote.
“Online programs such as ours will allow the effective dissemination of high-quality information without regard to geography or privileged, well-resourced academic settings,” Mandl and colleagues wrote. “... Whether the impact on improvements in confidence translate into better patient outcomes is an important area of future research.”
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