Bronchial asthma: assessment of knowledge among therapeutic profile physicians during continuing education courses

The urgency of the problem is due to the need to implement the current clinical guidelines, as well as modern approaches to the treatment and prevention of bronchial asthma (BA), proposed by the GINA (Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention) expert committee into the practice of physicians. There are many offers of training courses available on the Internet, which often do not give the expected results. This study presents the results of a two-stage testing of participants in the advanced training cycle (37 physicians of therapeutic profile from the Republic of Mari El) using research questionnaires within the ASSA-IV multicenter project «ASSA» («Assessment of senior medical students in the field of bronchial asthma ») to assess the baseline level of knowledge on the etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and pharmacotherapy of BA. Descriptive statistics methods were used, and group comparisons were conducted using the Wilcoxon test. The proportion of correct answers of responses was 64.2 % (95% CI: 60.8–67.6%) in the first stage and 89.6% (95% CI: 85.6–93.1%) in the second stage. The Wilcoxon criterion for difference in mean was 664.5, which was statistically highly significant (p<0.001). The median value increased from 67% (Q1–Q3: 57–71%) to 90% (Q1–Q3: 8.5–100%). The greatest progress in average level of the proportion of correct answers values was observed in questions related to the etiology of BA (+31.6%; p<0.001 – question 1), BA pharmacotherapy (+59.5%; p<0.001 – question 14; +46%; p<0.001 – question 17; +67.6%; p<0.001 – question 18; +50%; p<0.001 – question 19). The findings confirm the necessity for physicians to regularly complete continuing medical education courses, prioritizing state-accredited educational institutions.