title: Pamphlet as a tool for continuing medical education: performance assessment in a randomized controlled interventional study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Pamphlet is a tool used for distance continuous professional development programs. In this study, we assessed the impact of an educational pamphlet on improving prescription writing errors in general physicians' performance.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this randomized controlled interventional study, we prepared a training pamphlet according to the most prevalent prescription writing problems. We randomized 200 participants among general physicians affiliated with Tehran Social Security Insurance Organization, and randomly divided them into intervention and control groups. Participants' prescriptions (N= 34888) were investigated over a month, and then the prepared pamphlet was sent out to the participants in the intervention group. After three months we examined their one-month prescriptions again (N= 30296) and investigated the changes in prescription errors.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no significant difference in the mean number of prescriptions in two groups before and after intervention (p= 0.076). Mean number of medicinal items reduced significantly in intervention group. Also mean number of prescriptions including injection drugs (p= 0.024), Corticosteroids (p= 0.036), Cephalosporin (p= 0.017) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (p=0.005) reduced significantly. No significant differences were found for other errors.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study showed that use of an appropriate pamphlet has a considerable impact on improving general physicians' performance and could be applied for continuous professional development.
authors.affiliation: PhD candidate, Department of Medical Education, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. aeen_mohammadi@tums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Aeen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mohammadi
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of e-learning in Medical Education, Virtual School, Center for Excellence in E-learning in Medical Education, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. r_mojtahedzadeh@tums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Rita
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mojtahedzadeh
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School, Educational Development Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. emamiami@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: AmirHossein
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Emami
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Education, Medical School, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. marjanehdehpour@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Marjaneh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dehpour
keywords: Continuous medical education; Educational media; General practitioners; Pamphlet