title: General practitioners facing dementia: are they fully prepared?
abstract: We assessed knowledge about Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a sample of Italian general practitioners (GPs). We first carried out a propedeutic study to verify the ability of an Italian version of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's AD Knowledge Test for Health Professionals to distinguish between 20 AD specialists and 20 non-specialists and to gain reference values. We then administered the test, together with a short questionnaire, to 139 GPs attending an educational programme in November 2000. The cut-off score for discriminating specialists from non-specialists was >/=9. Among the 95 GPs who performed the AD Knowledge Test (68.3% response rate), 21% had a total score >/=9. Our findings suggest that particular focus should be given to dementia in continuing medical education (CME) programmes for GPs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Via S. Lucia 2, I-62100, Macerata, Italy. neuro@asl9.marche.it
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pucci
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Angeleri
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Borsetti
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brizioli
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cartechini
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giuliani
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Solari
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000628:therapy; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires