Evaluating the Quantity and Quality of Continuing medical education Programs from the Viewpoint of General Medical Practitioners, Ilam Province

Background and purpose: The purpose of this research was to evaluate the quantity and quality of continuing medical education programs from the viewpoint of general medical practitioners in Ilam province.Methods: The research method was descriptive survey and the statistic sample was a group of 61 general medical practitioners who have been working in Ilam during 2010-2011 and were chosen by simple random sampling method. The data collection tool was a questionnaire with 50 items and reliability coefficient obtained using Cronbach's alpha which was 88%.Results: The findings showed that there is a meaningful/significant relationship between CME (Continuing Medical Education)/retraining programs and improving GPs (General Practitioner) clinical skills with reliability of 99% and this relationship is direct and positive (r=0.502). It means that increasing the quality and quantity of these programs has positive effect on improving general practitioners’ clinical skills. There was no meaningful/significant relationship between the method of teaching and GPs satisfaction (r=0.160). It means most of these practitioners were not satisfied with using training equipment, teaching methods, teachers' knowledge and manners. Also, there was no meaningful/significant relationship between teaching times and educational materials and GPs satisfaction (r=0.73) .It shows that the rate of GPs satisfaction from teaching times and educational materials is very low and there is little coherence between them. But there was a meaningful/significant relationship between GPs job requirements and educational materials with reliability of 95% (r=0.326). It means presenting suitable teaching materials and content related to GPs jobs requirements led to increase GPs desire to attend educational classes .There was no meaningful/significant relationship between time dedicated to each topic and improving GPs skills (r=0.096). So, findings indicate that there is no coincidence between GPs topics priorities and the time allocated to each CME program. There is a meaningful/significant relationship between up-to-date programs and improving GPs clinical skills (r=0.409).Conclusions: If quantity and quality of presented content be higher, it has positive effect on improving clinical skills and vice versa. All in all practitioners were not satisfied with the way of presenting topics including training equipment ,teaching methods, teachers' knowledge and manners. Suitable way of presenting content related to practitioners' jobs requirements led to increase their desire to attend educational classes. The results of this study showed that there was no coherence between practitioners' priorities and allocated time to continuing medical education program. There was no significant difference.