Satisfaction with web-based courses on clinical practice guidelines for psychiatrists: Findings from the "Effectiveness of Guidelines for Dissemination and Education in Psychiatric Treatment (EGUIDE)" project.

To disseminate, educate, and validate psychiatric clinical practice guidelines, the Effectiveness of Guidelines for Dissemination and Education in Psychiatric Treatment (EGUIDE) project was launched in 2016. In this study, we investigated whether the web-based courses offered by this project would be as effective as the face-to-face courses. We analyzed and compared survey answers about overall participant satisfaction with the course and answers regarding clinical knowledge of schizophrenia and major depressive disorder between 170 participants who took the web-based courses in 2020 and 689 participants who took the face-to-face courses from 2016 to 2019. The web-based course participants completed the survey questions about satisfaction with the web-based courses. The web-based courses were conducted using a combination of web services to make it as similar as possible to the face-to-face courses. The degree of satisfaction assessed by the general evaluation of the web-based courses was higher than what was expected from the face-to-face courses. The degree of satisfaction was similar for the courses on schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. In addition, there were no significant differences in overall satisfaction and clinical knowledge between web-based and face-to-face courses. In conclusion, the web-based courses on clinical practice guidelines provided by the EGUIDE project were rated as more satisfying than the face-to-face course that the participants expected to take and no differences in the effectiveness of either course. The results suggest that, after the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be possible to disseminate this educational material more widely by adopting web-based courses additionally face-to-face courses.

The characteristics of patients receiving psychotropic pro re nata medication at discharge for the treatment of schizophrenia and major depressive disorder: A nationwide survey from the EGUIDE project.

BACKGROUND: Although several guidelines indicate that daily pharmacotherapy is an important part of the treatment of schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, there are few reports regarding pro re nata (PRN) prescriptions. The purpose of this study is to clarify the characteristics of patients receiving psychotropic PRN prescription for the treatment of schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. METHOD: We used data from 'the effectiveness of guideline for dissemination and education in psychiatric treatment' (EGUIDE) project to evaluate the presence or absence of psychotropic PRN prescription at the time of discharge, the age and sex of patients receiving PRN prescription for each diagnosis, and the association between PRN prescription and regular daily psychotropics. RESULTS: The psychotropic PRN prescription ratio was 29.9% among 2617 patients with schizophrenia and 31.1% among 1248 patients with major depressive disorder at discharge. In schizophrenia, the psychotropic PRN prescription ratio was 21.6% for patients aged 65 years or older, which was lower than that of all other age groups. In major depressive disorder, the psychotropic PRN prescription ratio was 34.2% for female patients, which was significantly higher than that for male patients (25.5%). In schizophrenia, there was an association between psychotropic PRN prescription and regular use of multiple psychotropic medications. CONCLUSIONS: Psychotropic PRN prescription was less common in elderly patients with schizophrenia and more common in female patients with major depressive disorder. In schizophrenia, psychotropic PRN prescription led to polypharmacy of psychotropics. Further studies are needed to accumulate evidence and to provide education on appropriate PRN prescriptions.