Physicians’ Intention and Behavior After Continuing Professional Development Courses: A Pre - Post Study

Context: Continuing professional development (CPD) is a common way for physicians to update their clinical practice. Providers of CPD seek to improve their courses, but to the best of our knowledge, few use theory-informed measurement tools to evaluate their impact.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of courses, identify factors that influence physicians' intention to adopt a targeted clinical behavior after a course, and whether their intention influenced whether they actually adopted the behavior.

Study Design and Analysis: Study with pre - post measures, guided by an integrated behavior change framework developed by Godin et al. Descriptive statistics were performed. A linear regression model was used for bivariate and multivariate analyses.

Setting or Dataset: Data were collected online from the databases of the Federation of Medical Specialists of Quebec (FMSQ).

Participants completed: 1) sociodemographic and CPD-REACTION questionnaires before courses (n=158), 2) CPD-REACTION questionnaire after courses (n=129) and 3) a self-reported behavior change questionnaire six months later (n=47).

Population Studied: Specialist physicians who participated in one of 9 selected courses at a training day of the FMSQ in 2019.

Intervention/Instrument: Participation in person at least one of 9 CPD courses at an interdisciplinary training day, completion of the CPD-REACTION questionnaire, and completion of a self-reported behavior change questionnaire.

Outcome Measures: Intention to adopt the targeted behavior was measured with the CPD-REACTION questionnaire, a validated measurement tool designed to assess the impact of a CPD courses on the intention of health professionals. Scores vary between 1 and 7. Self-reported behavior change was collected 6 months later with a second questionnaire.

Results: Intention increased after courses (means difference=0.45, p 0.002). Post-courses, moral norm, beliefs about capabilities and beliefs about consequences emerged as predictors of increased intention. The mean score of intention of participants who later self-reported as having adopted the targeted behavior was higher than the mean score of intention of participants who had not (6.63 vs 6.00, p 0.02).

Conclusions: Findings suggested that intention increased after courses and was influenced by moral norm, beliefs about capabilities and beliefs about consequences. Intention after course was correlated to self-reported behavior 6 months later.