EVALUATION OF A SATELLITE BROADCASTED SYM POSIUM ON ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG-ABUSE

Results of a test given to participants in a symposium on alcoholism a nd drug abuse are presented The symposium was broadcasted via satellit e simultaneously to five cities in Mexico, and included 8 pretaped pan els covering topics on alcoholism and drug abuse. The methodology used for broadcasting the symposium allowed the interactive exchange of in formation between expert lecturers and participants. The quantitative and qualitative evaluation used the pretest-posttest design. Most of t he participants were physicians (28.9%) followed by psychologists (25. 7%) and social workers (18.1%). The global cognitive change among part icipants was 6 per cent. Almost 77 per cent of participants had scores between 51 and 70 points (over a possible maximum score of 100) in th e preevaluation test, and 76.4 per cent had scores between 61 and 80 p oints in the postevaluation test. Health professionals with 1-3 years of experience had the largest change in scores (9%), followed by those with 3 to 5 years experience (8%). Professionals with 5 to 10 years o f experience had a change of 5 per cent. Physicians showed the greates t cognitive change (7%) followed by psychologists and social workers w ith 5 per cent change. In the qualitative evaluation, 87.6 per cent of participants thought that the educational method used was ''Excellent '' of ''Good''. With respect to the satellite transmission, 79.4 per c ent of participants thought it was ''Excellent'' or ''Good''. It is co ncluded that this type of educational events are useful in reaching he alth professionals who otherwise would not have access to specialized and updated information. Participants suggested to integrate this type of events in formal continuing education programs in order to refresh and update their knowledge in these areas.