engleski

Case study: online education Alzheimers disease and dementia

INTRODUCTION:The introduction of the Internet in physician's everyday vvork has opened up new opportunities for continuing medical education in the form of online learning.The e-courses are offered continuously only at the Pliva por¬tal. E- learning courses and programs have been developed in collaboration vvith professional medical societies, medical school teachers and vvith the Medical Chamber. Online courses are free for ali participants. OBJECTIVErTo present the e-learning process at the Pliva portal and the results of the course Alzheimer, s disease and dementia. Learning objectives were as fol- lows: signs and symptoms of mild cognitive innpairment ; diagnosis of dementia and mild cognitive impairments ; the clinical stages of cognitive impairment and symptoms associated vvith each stage ; the role of family physicians. METHODS: After reading the selected articles, the prepared documents and after vievving a video presentation, participants could start ansvvering the 50 multiple-choice questions that only had one correct ansvver. The limit to pass the exam was set at 60% correct ansvvers.The system is implemented on Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL and PHP platform. Participants have been offered the pos- sibility to evaluate the online course on quality and usefulness of the topics by completing a questionnaire and giving scores from 1 to7 (1 being the vvorst and 7 being the best).The vvritten comments were analysed separately. RESULTS:The course vvas open from 7.8.2014 until 15.12.2014.1324 participants signed up, out of vvhich 1320 (98 %) successfully completed. Participants vvere mainly from Croatia (97%), 41% vvere family practitioners and 90% had already participated in our online courses. The course reviled the topic of dementia in Parkinson's disease and its treatment as the most difficult for physicians vvith only 6 % correct ansvvers. Evaluation questionnaire vvas completed by 811 partici-pants with an average grade of 6 for usefulness, quaIity of learning material and questions, test difficulty grade and the stimulus for further learning.The vvritten comments of course participants highlighted the usefulness of the course, espe- ciallyfor physicians from isolated and rural parts of Croatia. CONCLUSION:The analysis of participant data, the incorrect ansvvers and eval- uation questionnaire provided us vvith a lot of insight and information about the unmet educational needs for new online educations.Through the cooperation vvith medical societies and associations and trough the certification by the Med- ical Chamber, the online education platform at Pliva provides a high quality con- tinuing medical education service for physicians in Croatia and the Region.

Alzheimer's disease ; dementia ; online education

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