Teaching of evidence-based medicine principles in Family medicine curriculum: a descriptive study

Abstract

Background: Family medicine was considered officially and legally in early 2019 in Tunisia. In order to help general practitioners to fit with the new profile of family doctors, the faculty of medicine of Tunis launched an MBA curriculum in 2018. Teaching evidence-based-medicine (EBM) principals was planned in a one-day training and was divided into a morning lecture-based session and an afternoon work team session.
Aim: To assess the acceptability of this training by the participants and to highlight the consequences of this tutoring on the research skills of the trainees.
Methods: This is a cross sectional, prospective and descriptive study including the trainees registered in the MBA curriculum. A web site was created and contained a pre-test. After the work team session, the participants were asked to fulfill a post test and a feed back form. 
Results: 20 trainees participated to the training day. 17 participants agreed to fulfil the pre-test, the post test and the feed back form. The mean and the median scores of the pre-test were estimated respectively to 11.19 and 14/20. The mean score and the median of the post-tests scores were estimated respectively to 12.69, and 14/20. No significant statistical difference was observed between the pre and post test scores (p=0.2). The majority of the trainees were totally satisfied with the training program. 13/17 participants estimated their needs’ scale in EBM practice to 4/5.
Conclusion: Our results highlighted the acceptability of EBM teaching in family medicine curriculum. The absence of significant difference pre test and post test scores can be explained by the fact that all participants obtained their doctorate and were able to perform a critical appraisal of medical articles.