PERSISTENCE OF CRITICAL-READING OF RESEAR CH ARTICLES BY MEDICAL RESIDENTS

Objectives. 1. To evaluate the persistence of a training course on cri tical reading of medical articles by medical residents seven months af ter training. 2. To compare the persistence of training according to t ype of training (participative vs expositive). Methods. We used the sa me groups of first year medical residents of a previous study. They ha d received seven months before a 30 hours training in the reading of r esearch articles: Group I (N = 28) had a course of active participatio n by reading articles previous to meeting discussions; II (n = 17) exp osition of research themes by active researchers; III (n = 23) same as II but with non-research trainers. Using an examination questionnaire developed and validated by us to explore critical reading of research papers, the trainees were scored after finishing their training (init ial score). Seven months later we retested them using the same test (n ot all were retested: two were missing in groups I and III and six in Group II). Non parametric statistics were used to compare the groups ( Wilcoxon, Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney). Results. There were no intrag roup differences of the retesting versus the initial median in the thr ee groups (I had 17.5 vs 19 initial, II had 7 vs 13, III had 6 vs 3). In the initial testing, Groups I and II scored higher than III, but on ly Group I was higher than the other groups upon retesting (p<0.006). Conclusion. An active participatory training to promote critical readi ng was better than the traditional training techniques still widely us ed.