ArticleBMC family practice2016
Impact of continuing medical education in cancer diagnosis on GP knowledge, attitude and readiness to investigate - a before-after study.
Article in BMC family practice, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT02069470 (The Effect of Continuing Medical Education), which is not on this map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
The Effect of Continuing Medical Education (CME) on Early Cancer Diagnosis in General Practice
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of interventions to recognise, refer and diagnose patients with lung cancer symptoms.NPJ primary care respiratory medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Educational Interventions to Reduce Cancer Diagnostic Delays in Primary Care: A Scoping Review.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2026Review
- Discrete choice experiment on the preferences for continuing medical education training programs among primary health care physicians in China.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Synthesis of Existent Oncology Curricula for Primary Care Providers: A Scoping Review With a Global Equity Lens.JCO global oncology · 2023Article
- Article
- Oral cancer knowledge and practice among medical students: A cross-sectional study during the Syrian crisis.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2022Article
- Healthcare practices that increase the quality of care in cancer trajectories from a general practice perspective: a scoping review.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2022Article
- Evaluation of continuing education of family health strategy teams for the early identification of suspected cases of cancer in children.BMC medical education · 2017Article
- Impact of a continuing medical education meeting on the use and timing of urgent cancer referrals among general practitioners - a before-after study.BMC family practice · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundContinuing medical education (CME) in earlier cancer diagnosis was launched in Denmark in 2012 as part of the Danish National Cancer Plan. The CME programme was introduced to improve the recognition among general practitioners (GPs) of symptoms suggestive of cancer and improve the selection of patients requiring urgent investigation. This study aims to explore the effect of CME on GP knowledge about cancer diagnosis, attitude towards own role in cancer detection, self-assessed readiness to investigate and cancer risk assessment of urgently referred patients.
methodsWe conducted a before-after study in the Central Denmark Region including 831 GPs assigned to one of eight geographical clusters. All GPs were invited to participate in the CME at three-week intervals between clusters. A questionnaire focusing on knowledge, attitude and clinical vignettes was sent to each GP one month before and seven months after the CME. The GPs were also asked to assess the risk of cancer in patients urgently referred to a fast-track cancer pathway during an eight-month period. CME-participating GPs were compared with reference (non-participating) GPs by analysing before-after differences.
resultsOne quarter of all GPs participated in the CME. 202 GPs (24.3 %) completed both the baseline and the follow-up questionnaires. 532 GPs (64.0 %) assessed the risk of cancer before the CME and 524 GPs (63.1 %) assessed the risk of cancer after the CME in urgently referred consecutive patients. Compared to the reference group, CME-participating GPs statistically significantly improved their understanding of a rational probability of diagnosing cancer among patients urgently referred for suspected cancer, increased their knowledge of cancer likelihood in a 50-year-old referred patient and lowered the assessed risk of cancer in urgently referred patients.
conclusionsThe standardised CME lowered the GP-assessed cancer risk of urgently referred patients, whereas the effect on knowledge about cancer diagnosis and attitude towards own role in cancer detection was limited. No effect was found on the GPs' readiness to investigate. CME may be effective for optimising the interpretation of cancer symptoms and thereby improve the selection of patients for urgent cancer referral.
trial registrationNCT02069470 on ClinicalTrials.gov. Retrospectively registered, 1/29/2014.
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