Evaluation of an Educational Intervention for Pediatricians to Increase Patient Compliance.

Abstract

This study examined the effects of an educational intervention for pediatricians on their knowledge of, attitudes toward, and behavior related to increasing mothers' compliance with a ten-day antibiotic regimen for children diagnosed with otitis media. Eighty-nine pediatricians were r and omized into three groups, Tutorial plus Written Materials (TWM), Written Materials (WM), and Control. Pediatricians in the TWM group attended tutorial sessions focusing on ways to increase compliance; and received a written summary of the tutorial, which was also mailed to the WM group. Mother-child pairs were recruited from each pediatrician's office and interviewed eight days following the office visit, concerning their satisfaction with the provider-patient interaction, and compliance-related knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors. Pediatricians completed a mailed questionnaire regarding their compliance-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. ANOVA results showed that TWM compared to Control group pediatricians were more knowledgeable about compliance-enhancing strategies, felt that compliance counseling was less difficult, and implemented compliance-enhancing strategies more frequently. The TWM group also scored significantly higher than the WM group on some of the knowledge and behavioral outcomes; however, there were no significant differences between the WM and Control groups. The results from ANOVA and ANCOVA revealed that the educational intervention had no effect on the mothers' compliance-related outcomes with the exception of mothers' self-reports of compliance. WM pediatricians had a significantly higher percentage of patients in their study cohorts who reported complying. These results should be interpreted with caution because they were not supported by the results from analyses with the pill/liquid assessments.