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Impact of Adaptive e-learning in health professionals and students : a systematic review and meta analysis

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Adaptive e-learning environment improves skills in health professionals and students.

Fontaine M and team has conducted a study to systematically identify, appraise and synthesise the evidence regarding the efficacy of adaptive e-learning environments (AEEs) in improving knowledge, skills and clinical behavior in health professionals and students.

It was a first systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy of AEEs in health professionals and students. The study included the controlled studies or primary research articles reporting the assessment of an AEE with health professionals, students, trainees and residents in any discipline. Two authors screened studies, extracted data, assessed risk of bias and coded quality of evidence independently. They reviewed AEEs with regard to their topic, theoretical framework and adaptivity process. Using random effects model, effect sizes (ES) were pooled up.

From a pool of 10,569 articles, 21 studies were included enrolling 3684 health professionals and students. Out of 21 studies, 17 of which assessed an AEE versus another educational intervention (large-group classroom instruction, Non-adaptive e-learning environments (NEE) or paper-based learning), and 4 of which assessed 2 AEEs with design variations head-to-head. Clinical topics were related to diagnostic testing, theoretical frameworks were varied and the adaptivity process included five subdomains, such as method, goals, timing, factors and types. The study revealed that the pooled ES for knowledge was 0.70 (95% CI −0.08 to 1.49; p.08) and for skills, it was 1.19 (95% CI 0.59 to 1.79; p<0.00001). There was high risk of bias and heterogeneity was also large.

The study concluded that AEEs are more effective in improving skills in health professionals and students. The adaptivity process within AEEs may be more beneficial for learning skills rather than factual knowledge.

Reference:

Fontaine G, Cossette S, Maheu-Cadotte M, et al. Efficacy of adaptive e-learning for health professionals and students: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open 2019; 9:e025252.

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social media-The new era of maintaining transparency in evidence based practice

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Social media could be a valuable tool for spreading evidence-based information to the target audience. Additionally, it can be a great solution to improve the interaction between individuals, institutions, and countries.

Amy Keir and the team has conducted a study to determine the use of social media platforms, such as Twitter and other online platforms in disseminating information about the new research and develop evidence-based medicine resource.

The study was formalized when the neonatologists and paediatric emergency physician used the social media tools to spread new research findings met at the Paediatric Academic Societies meeting in 2019, in Toronto. The hashtag #neoEBM was a way to spread and track the evidence-based neonatology content. To strengthen the group further links were also built through which the information was sent.

Two months after the formation of #neoEBM, about 1925 posts appeared from 502 users. Based on the study results, the use of social media to disseminate evidence-based healthcare information represents one of the important tools. However, broader engagement, collaboration, coordination, and guidance are required for effective dissemination strategies.

The study concludes that social media can be a valuable tool for disseminating knowledge around evidence-based healthcare, including new research findings.

Reference:

Keir A, Bamat N, Patel RM, Elkhateeb O, Roland D. Utilising social media to educate and inform healthcare professionals, policy-makers and the broader community in evidence-based healthcare. BMJ Evid Based Med. 2019 Jun; 24(3):87-89.