BACKGROUND
Currently there are about 5.6 million Canadians living with dementia with an estimate of nearly 1 million people being diagnosed with dementia by 2031. Primary care Providers (PCPs) are crucial to the management and care of dementia patients.
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to evaluate the perceived educational needs and preferences of PCPs for training and education in dementia within an online environment.
METHODS
A prospective, qualitative research study. Participants were primary care providers purposively recruited currently licensed to practice in Ontario that possessed a patient population with dementia, and were willing to attend a focus group session and/or one to one interview. A deductive content/thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. A total of 19 participants took part in the study across four focus groups (n=15) and four individual interviews (n=4).
RESULTS
The study found that the notion of credibility of information is critical to the learning process and highly valued by physicians. Credibility appears to overlap across the two constructs and the importance of credibility seems to link notions of perceived behaviour control with physicians’ subjective norms. Participants expressed a need for learning that can support their ability to make clinical decisions. Participants expressed the value of educational tools such as technology resources, an online “evidence-based, physician-authored clinical decision support resource and so on. They also wanted to use decision-making tools such as RxFiles.
CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, PCPs have educational needs which may pose as facilitators to physician learning, eLearning and continuing medical education.