Primary care physicians, internet and educational media. Preferences, usages and appraisal in a 6-year comparison

Background and Purpose: Several studies suggest that primary care physicians prefer "traditional" media like journals or quality circles for their postgraduate medical education. This survey was designed to gain a better understanding of primary care physicians' learning media preferences. The actual results were compared with data from a survey with the same physicians conducted in 2001 to identify a change in their preferred learning media. Methods: 57 primary care physicians (23% female, 77% male) took part in this survey. A standardized questionnaire was distributed which covered three topics: medical knowledge acquired after medical school, current use of and demands on medical education media. All participating physicians had already completed this questionnaire 6 years ago. Answers were compared on single-item level using Kendall's tau(c) correlation coefficient. Additionally, in 2007, there were a few items about internet and PDA ("personalized digital assistants") usage which were analyzed descriptively. Results: For their continuing medical education primary care physicians predominantly indicated quality circles, scientific journals, and colleagues. The internet, pharmaceutical representatives, and scientific staff at research institutions were less used and less valued. The most favored attributes concerning medical education media were "reliable" and "relevant for daily practice", less favored were "interactive" and "pictorial". A high correlation between the results of the 2001 and the 2007 survey was found. Conclusion: The survey demonstrated the situation of medical education media from 57 primary care physicians and their learning media preferences in a 6-year comparison: their preferences remained relatively constant. Thus far, new media have still a minor role among the relevant educational media for primary care physicians despite the fact that the internet use, in general, was high. New education tools should be designed according to these preferences.