Impact of an Educational Intervention on Ankle-Brachial Index Performance Among Medical Students and Fidelity Assessment at Six Months.

BACKGROUND: The resting ankle-brachial index (ABI) is a clinical test to diagnose peripheral artery disease. The Wyatt's score has been proposed to assess the students' performance on ABI measurement on a healthy volunteer (HV). No study has shown that this score is sensitive to different teaching methods. In this randomized controlled trial, we wanted to determine whether didactic learning alone or didactic learning combined with experiential learning improves proficiency in the ABI procedure assessed by the Wyatt's score. METHODS: Medical students (n = 30) received a didactic learning, including (1) a presentation of the ABI guidelines and (2) a video demonstration. Each student was then randomized into 2 groups ("the no experiential learning group" and "the experiential learning group"). An initial evaluation was performed after the didactic learning and then the final evaluation at the end of the intervention. A student was considered to be proficient when he performed a correct ABI procedure on an HV. The correct procedure corresponds to the following: (1) correctly answered Wyatt's score and (2) a difference in the ABI measurement between a professor in vascular medicine and a student was ≤0.15. RESULTS: No student was proficient at the initial evaluation. At the final evaluation, there was a significant difference between the number of proficient students for the Wyatt's score depending on their learning group [didactic alone (1/10) or didactic + experiential training (15/20)] and also for the ABI procedure [didactic alone (0/10) or didactic + experiential training (16/20)]. At 6 months, among the 12 students who passed the final evaluation, 4 students passed both the Wyatt's score and the ABI measurement. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that the Wyatt's score was sensitive to an educational intervention and no improvement was found in the case of "no experiential learning." The Wyatt's score could be used to evaluate the student on ABI measurement after an educational intervention. TRIAL REGISTRATION: A randomized controlled trial was conducted in the Vascular Medicine Department of Rennes University Hospital (France). This was approved by the ethics review board of our institution (no. 16.150).

How to become proficient in performance of the resting ankle-brachial index: Results of the first randomized controlled trial.

The resting ankle-brachial index (ABI) is a first-line test to diagnose peripheral artery disease (PAD). No randomized controlled trial (RCT) has yet been conducted to determine the best teaching method to become proficient in the ABI procedure. We conducted a monocentric RCT to determine whether didactic learning alone or didactic learning combined with experiential learning improved proficiency in the ABI procedure. Medical students ( n = 30) received didactic learning, including (i) a presentation of the ABI guidelines and (ii) a video demonstration. Each student was then randomized into two groups ('no experiential learning group' and 'experiential learning group'). An initial evaluation was performed after the didactic learning and a final evaluation at the end of the intervention. A student was considered to be proficient when he or she performed a correct ABI procedure on a healthy individual and a patient. The correct procedure corresponds to (i) following guidelines and (ii) a difference in ABI measurement between a vascular specialist and a student of ≤ 0.15. No student was proficient at the initial evaluation. At the final evaluation, in the didactic learning group, the number of proficient students was not improved compared with the initial evaluation (0/10 vs 1/10). In the experiential learning group, the number of proficient students was significantly improved (0/20 vs 11/20; p < 0.05). At the final evaluation, there was a significant difference between the number of proficient students depending on their learning group. In conclusion, didactic learning alone is insufficient to gain proficiency in the ABI procedure. Combining didactic learning with experiential learning significantly improved the students' proficiency.

Atherosclerosis knowledge - diagnosis and management in primary care.

BACKGROUND: Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death worldwide. Ischaemic stroke, coronary heart disease (CHD), and peripheral artery disease (PAD) are different forms of atherosclerotic disease. Knowledge among general practitioners (GPs) about the three main locations of atherosclerosis has never been conjointly explored in a single study. The aim of this survey was to compare GP awareness on the subject of these three different clinical presentations. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between February 2017 and May 2017, a self-administered survey was emailed to 18,500 French GPs. The questionnaire comprised three clinical cases involving cases of transient ischaemic attack (TIA), stable angina (SA), and intermittent claudication (IC). Each case was explored with seven similar questions. The primary endpoint was the number of physicians who correctly answered five questions for each clinical case. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 1,724 GPs. TIA knowledge (48.2 %) was significantly higher than the SA knowledge (3.0 %) and IC knowledge (0.4 %). We also found a significant difference between SA knowledge and IC knowledge. The percentages of GPs who correctly diagnosed TIA, SA or IC were 96.7, 89.7, and 96.5 %, respectively (p < 0.0001). Poor knowledge ratings for all three locations were observed for inadequate prescription of supplementary investigations and treatments. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that GPs' knowledge about atherosclerosis disease varies significantly depending on disease location. GPs diagnose correctly but need to be backed up for their management of patients with atherosclerosis.