A Systematic Evaluation of Research on Continuing Education for General Practitioners in China in the Last Decade

Background With the changing disease spectrum of the population and the advancement of the national tiered diagnosis and treatment system, general practitioners play a vital role in disease diagnosis and treatment. At the same time, the continuous updating of medical knowledge and the ongoing changes in the health service demands of the residents necessitate the ongoing participation of general practitioners in continuing education and training. This ensures they can make the best diagnostic and treatment decisions and manage diseases effectively for their patients. Objective To analyze the current developments, training quality and research quality of continuing education research of general practice in China in the past ten years (2013-2022) . Methods In January 2023, eight Chinese and English databases including PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, CINAHL, ERIC, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, and China Biology Medicine Literature Service System were used as data sources to obtain research on the training of continuing education for general practitioners in China. The literature was read, analyzed, organized, and summarized, with the search period ranging from January 2013 to December 2022. The Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) was utilized to comprehensively evaluate the quality of the literature. Results This review included a total of 49 articles, of which 11 were in English and 38 in Chinese. The themes of continuing education training focused on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (22.4%), emergency-related content (6.1%), and mental health (6.1%). The training formats were relatively singular, mainly based on traditional expert lectures (69.3%), with only 6.1% adopting the form of skill training, and 4.0% of the studies using problem-based learning (PBL) or team-based learning (TBL) training formats. There was usually a lack of rigorous evaluation: 31 studies (63.2%) used questionnaires to assess the effectiveness of the training, of which 19 had not undergone validity and reliability testing. In the study design, the largest proportion was single-group pre-post comparison (53.1%), followed by randomized controlled trials with pre-post measurements (26.5%), and the smallest proportion was controlled pre-post comparison (4.1%). Only 9 studies (18.3%) explicitly mentioned ethical approval, while the majority of studies (81.7%) did not undergo ethical review. The evaluations focused on the enhancement of knowledge and skills of general practitioners before and after trainin (85.7%), with less coverage of actual behavioral changes (14.2%) and benefits to patients and healthcare facilities (22.4%) . Conclusion In the past decade, the attention to general practice continuing education research has been insufficient, but there is significant room for development. In the future, it is necessary to expand training themes and adopt diverse training methods based on actual needs. Utilizing assessment tools with good validity and reliability, and focusing on the actual behavioral changes brought about by training, will benefit patients and enhance the quality of continuing education for general practitioners in multiple dimensions.