Distilling the literature: A randomized, controlled trial testing an intervention to improve selection of medical articles for reading

Purpose. To test whether an academic detailing intervention would improve j ournal reading among residents. Method. In 1995-96, the authors conducted a randomized controlled trial at two family medicine residencies in Missouri. Fifty-nine family practice res idents were randomized into two groups identical in baseline characteristic s; 29 received individual 15-minute educational presentations, based on aca demic detailing, that emphasized careful selection of medical journal artic les for reading, The authors measured the percentage of important journal a rticles of which the residents were aware, the percentage of those they had read (either abstract only or the whole article), and the percentage of co rrectly answered knowledge questions. Results. Despite randomization, the residents in the control group indicate d on the pretest that they were more likely than were the residents in the intervention group to be aware of and to have read abstracts from selected articles. However, when comparing pretest with posttest results, the interv ention group recalled 18.2% (95% CI, 2.0, 34.0) more articles and correctly answered 16.6% (95% CI 3.0, 29.9) more knowledge questions than did the co ntrol group. Conclusion. A brief intervention increased residents' recall of important a rticles and knowledge of those articles' conclusions.