title: Do published studies of educational outreach provide documentation of potentially important characteristics?
abstract: Educational outreach is a common intervention used to translate research findings into practice; however, the intervention has a mixed effect on changing clinician behavior and improving patient outcomes. Based on a published set of characteristics aimed at standardizing the approach to educational outreach, the authors undertook a careful review of the literature to determine the consistency and completeness of documentation. Using a 25-item abstraction tool, the authors reviewed 68 published studies of a recent Cochrane meta-analysis to determine the extent to which educational outreach studies provide recommended documentation of important characteristics. The results indicate that studies are generally inconsistent (documentation range of 0% to 100% across characteristics) and incomplete (documentation average of 43.1% across studies) in their descriptions. Documentation shortcomings of educational outreach studies make understanding the intervention and interpreting its findings particularly challenging. The authors recommend the creation of a guideline to help improve documentation of educational outreach efforts.
authors: 1University of Connecticut School of Nursing, Storrs, CT.
authors: Thomas J
authors: TJ
authors: Van Hoof
authors: Nicole E
authors: NE
authors: Miller
authors: Thomas P
authors: TP
authors: Meehan
mesh_terms: D004282:Documentation / Q000592:standards*; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D058996:Quality Improvement; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States
keywords: academic detailing; continuing education; educational outreach; quality improvement