A multifaceted intervention: no increase in general practitioners' competence to diagnose XXXX (minSKIN) - randomized controlled trial.

@entity1489 @entity272
BACKGROUND: General practitioners (GPs) play crucial roles in early detection of @entity1489 . A pilot-study found a positive short-term effect of a 1-day dermatologic education programme on GPs' diagnostic competence. OBJECTIVE: To determine effects of a multifaceted intervention, including technical equipment and continuing feedback by a dermatologist, on GPs' diagnostic skills regarding @entity1489 . METHODS: Randomized controlled trial with 78 GPs of the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland. INTERVENTION: GPs in intervention group received a 1-day training, a Lumio(  ) (magnifying glass with polarized light, 3Gen), a Nikon digital camera and - during 1  year - feedback on @entity272 pictures sent to the dermatologist. GPs in control group only received the 1-day training. MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES: Primary outcome: structured assessment of GP's diagnostic skills in correctly diagnosing images of @entity272 regarding @entity1489 . At baseline prior to intervention (T0), after the full-day training course in both groups (T1), and after 1  year of continuing feedback (T2) to the intervention group. MEASURES: Non-parametric unpaired (Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney) tests were used to compare numbers of correctly classified @entity272 between both groups at T2 and for the change between T1 and T2. RESULTS: At T0, both groups classified a median of 23 @entity272 of the 36 images correctly. This value rose to 28 for both groups at T1 and fell to 24 for both groups at T2. No difference between control and intervention group at T2. Furthermore, we compared differences in the sum scores per GP between T1 and T2 for each group. Also in this comparison, no difference between control and intervention group was found. CONCLUSION AND RELEVANCE: No long-term effect of the multifaceted intervention was found on the competence to diagnose @entity1489 by GPs. The positive short-term effect of the 1-day dermatologic education programme did not persist over 12  months.
