Make a Journal Feel as if it Was Mailed Back From the Future

February 28, 2017 updated by: Yale University

Make a Journal Feel as if it Was Mailed Back From the Future Rather Than the Past so the Reader Will be More Likely to Read and Retain Journal Content

Optimal patient care hinges on physicians remaining up to date with developing medical knowledge. With ever increasing clinical demands however, the ability of physicians to do this is compromised. While the structure of journal based reports requires the devotion of significant time to glean emerging medical findings, social media can grab an individual's attention and then direct them to external media sites, so as to obtain more specific and detailed information of emerging medical findings. If medical journals were to fully embrace social media, physicians would have a more time-cost effective means for staying up to date.

Specific aims Using the investigator's experience as editors of two medical education based blogs, the Specific Aims of this project is to determine if a combined journal and social media-based education strategy will be more likely to continuously engage physicians. The investigators will specifically test whether physicians who access a medical journal blog will have better knowledge of the information contained in a journal, measured by CME-based questions of journal articles than they would if they only received links to the journal's site.

Specifically, the investigators will randomize participants into 3 groups with all interventions done by e-mail: group 1 is the usual care group, and will receive no intervention except for a reminder every six months to take a test of journal-based Continuing Medical Education (CME) questions from 2 anesthesiology journals; group 2 will get e-mailed web links to different specific articles, including articles on which the CME questions are based, published in 2 anesthesiology journals Monday through Friday with a reminder to take the same test every six months; and group 3 will get e-mailed web links to blogs Monday through Friday based on the same specific articles as in group 2; each daily blog will focus on a specific article, including articles on which CME questions are based, the blogs will have web links to the articles on which they are based and every six months group 3 will get a reminder to take the same test. This will continue for 2 years' duration. Every six months, the investigators will assess knowledge of material contained in the two journals using CME material from the journals.

The investigators hypothesize that those participants randomized to group 3, the group that will receive web links to blogs, will stay more informed, as measured by the test score of CME-based questions. The investigators expect that both groups 1, usual care, and 2, e-mailed links to articles, will have a similar low score as the investigators found in a preliminary study of anesthesiologists who were presented with a set of journal-based CME questions.

Public Health Significance. This study will demonstrate the utility of journal based blogs as a support to physicians in their effort to remain up to date with developing medical knowledge.

Study Overview

Status

Withdrawn

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA)
  • Must have granted ASA permission to receive email requests

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unwillingness to participate in the study
  • Inability to read or write
  • Younger than 26 years of age

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: No daily emails
The usual care group will receive no intervention except for a reminder every six months to take a test of journal-based CME questions from 2 anesthesiology journals
Placebo Comparator: Article email links
The email link group will get e-mailed web links to different specific articles, including articles on which the CME questions are based, published in 2 anesthesiology journals Monday through Friday with a reminder to take the same test every six months
Behavioral: Article email links
Email links to specific articles, published in 2 journals M-Fr with a reminder to take the same test every six month
Experimental: Blog email links
The experimental group will get e-mailed web links to blogs Monday through Friday based on the same specific articles as in group 2; each daily blog will focus on a specific article, including articles on which CME questions are based, the blogs will have web links to the articles on which they are based and every six months group 3 will get a reminder to take the same test.
Behavioral: Blog email links
Emailed web links to blog posts M-Fr based on the same articles as in Email links group; each blog post will focus on a specific article with links to the corresponding article. Every six months group 3 will get a reminder to take the same test.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
CME testing
Time Frame: 2 years
CME testing scores based on CME tests from 2 different anesthesiology journals
2 years

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Yale University

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Lance Lichtor, M.D., Yale University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

October 1, 2015

Primary Completion (Actual)

February 1, 2017

Study Completion (Actual)

February 1, 2017

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

July 23, 2015

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 23, 2015

First Posted (Estimate)

July 24, 2015

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 3, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 28, 2017

Last Verified

February 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 1506016077

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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