The Study Guide Cluster Randomized Control Trial

Can an App Improve the Examination Scores of Family Medicine Residents? A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Spaced education is a promising theory-driven strategy to improve clinical competence. Our aim is to improve the clinical competence of Family Physicians, an outcome associated with the quality of care delivered to Canadians.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Behavior
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Spaced educational intervention

Detailed Description

Research Question: Among family medicine residents, does enhanced feedback through an app providing alerts and test questions (spaced education), compared to the same app without alerts and enhanced feedback (no spaced education), improve competence as measured by the certification examination? In building this proposal for a definitive trial, the investigators have support from coast to coast. In addition to key clinician educators, the team includes knowledge users from the organization responsible for the certification examination in Family Medicine, methodologists and experienced researchers who study how mobile apps can promote engagement with clinical information. The team has the right blend of expertise in medical education and cluster randomized trials.

Approach and Methods: The investigators will follow an organizational participatory research approach, and propose a cluster randomized controlled trial. Setting: All incoming family medicine residents in Canada will be eligible to participate. Intervention site residents will receive alerts through an app to adaptively reinforce the learning of clinical content based on cases and test questions (spaced education). Residents in the control group will receive the same app providing identical clinical cases and test questions-on-demand, but with alerts inactivated (no spaced education). The primary outcome will be scores on the certification examination. This routinely collected data will be provided to the team by the College of Family Physicians of Canada.

Expected Results and Conclusion: Spaced education will improve examination scores. This will inform educational practice by providing evidence to optimize the training of residents.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 634
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Quebec
    • Montréal, Quebec, Canada
      • McGill University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: ADULT; OLDER_ADULT; CHILD
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• incoming family medicine residents in Canada (July 2017)

Exclusion Criteria:

• not a family medicine resident
• did not start residency on July 1, 2017

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: OTHER
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: DOUBLE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Intervention; Intervention site residents will receive alerts through an app to adaptively reinforce the learning of clinical content based on cases and test questions (spaced education).	Behavioral: Spaced educational intervention; A spaced educational intervention will be provided to participants
NO_INTERVENTION: Control; Residents in the control group will receive the same app providing identical clinical cases and test questions-on-demand, but with alerts inactivated (no spaced education).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Scores on the Certification Examination	This is the score on the written component of the examination of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. This refers to the grade/score given to participants on the Short Answer Management Problems (SAMP) section of the exam ranging from 0 to 100. Higher values represent a better outcome. The score minimum observed was 53.9 and max is 84.4 for this study.	2 years

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Jewish General Hospital
• Collaborators: University of British Columbia; Université de Sherbrooke; University of Alberta; McMaster University; University of Toronto; University of Calgary; University of Ottawa; Western University, Canada; Université de Montréal; Memorial University of Newfoundland; College of Family Physicians of Canada; Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): October 18, 2017
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): May 31, 2019
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): July 1, 2019

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: October 6, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 11, 2017
• First Posted (ACTUAL): October 17, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): February 12, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 25, 2021
• Last Verified: January 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: The Study Guide Trial 2017

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No