Diagnostic competence of Swiss general practitioners in skin cancer.

Badertscher N; Braun RP; Held U; Kofmehl R; Senn O; Hofbauer GF; Rossi PO; Wensing M; Rosemann T; Tandjung R

doi:10.4414/smw.2013.13834

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Journal article

Diagnostic competence of Swiss general practitioners in skin cancer.

Badertscher N Institute for General Practice, University of Zurich, Switzerland. nina.badertscher@usz.ch
Braun RP
Held U
Kofmehl R
Senn O
Hofbauer GF
Rossi PO
Wensing M
Rosemann T
Tandjung R

2013-07-31

Published in:

Swiss medical weekly. - 2013

Education, Medical, Continuing

English QUESTIONS UNDER STUDY
In Switzerland, skin cancer is one of the most prevalent neoplasms. General practitioners (GPs) are often faced with suspicious skin lesions in their patients. The aim of our study was to assess GPs' competence to diagnose skin cancer and to examine whether this can be improved by a one-day dermatologic education programme.

METHODS

STUDY DESIGN
Pre / post-intervention study.

STUDY POPULATION
78 GPs in the Canton of Zurich.

INTERVENTION
A one day dermatologic education programme provided by a dermatologist.

MEASUREMENTS
Before (T0) and after (T1) the dermatologic education programme, GPs were asked to rate pictures (with a short history) of skin lesions on a visual analogue scale according to their likelihood of malignancy.

ANALYSIS
Non-parametric paired Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare the sum score of correctly classified skin lesions at T0 and T1.

RESULTS
At T0 GPs classified 63.9% lesions correctly (benign: 51.2%; malignant: 76.6%), while at T1 these figures increased to 75.1% (benign: 67.6%; malignant: 82.7%).

CONCLUSION
A one-day dermatologic education programme led to improvements in GPs' diagnostic competence in skin cancer, but there remained room for further improvement.

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