Occupational Medicine Advance Access originally published online on May 25, 2008
Occupational Medicine 2008 58(5):373-375; doi:10.1093/occmed/kqn061
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Short Reports |
The effectiveness of an educational programme on occupational disease reporting
1 Netherlands Centre for Occupational Diseases, Coronel Institute of Occupational Health, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2 Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Knowledge Transfer Team, Kuopio, Finland
Background: Occupational diseases are under reported. Targeted education of occupational physicians (OPs) may improve their rate of reporting occupational diseases.
Aim: To study the effectiveness of an active multifaceted workshop aimed at improving OPs reporting of occupational diseases.
Methods: We undertook a comparative study with 112 OPs in the intervention group and 571 OPs as comparisons. The intervention was a 1-day workshop. Measurements of occupational disease reporting activity in both groups in 6-month periods before and after the intervention were collected via the national registration system. Measurements of OPs knowledge, self-efficacy and satisfaction were made in the intervention group. Differences between the groups and predictive factors for reporting were subsequently analysed statistically.
Results: The percentage of reporting OPs after the intervention was significantly higher in the intervention group compared to the comparison group at 19 versus 11% (P < 0.01). No differences were found in the average number of reported occupational diseases per reporting physician after the intervention: 3.7 (SD 5.37) versus 3.4 (SD 4.56) (not significant). The self-efficacy score was a predictive factor for reporting occupational diseases (P < 0.05). Measurements of knowledge and self-efficacy increased significantly (both parameters P < 0.001) and remained after half a year. Satisfaction was high (7.85 of 10).
Conclusions: An active, multifaceted workshop on occupational diseases is effective in increasing the number of physicians reporting occupational diseases. Self-efficacy measures are a predictive factor for such reporting.
Keywords Continuing medical education; occupational diseases; occupational physicians
Correspondence to: Paul B. A. Smits, Netherlands Centre for Occupational Diseases, Coronel Institute of Occupational Health, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 22700, 1100 DD Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel: +31205665333; fax: +31206977161; e-mail: p.b.smits{at}amc.nl