Continuing Professional Development

The Research Chair organized a workshop to bring together professional development decision makers, health services researchers, professors and clinicians in order to identify continuing professional development’s specific needs as well as to determine the foundation of an integrated research program dedicated to the development of research on continuing professional development (CPD). The objective of this initiative was to: 1) review the literature on CPD and identify any gaps; 2) identify strategies that would respond to the identified gaps while at the same time promoting the development of evidence in the field of CPD; and 3) propose a specific research project which would address some of the identified knowledge gaps in CPD. The workshop, titled Continuing Professional Development for the Implementation of Shared Decision Making in Primary Care, took place on November 18th and 19th, 2010 In developing this research network, the methods of implementing shared decision making in primary care were catalogued and submitted to critical evaluation. Gaps in knowledge on what makes CPD efficient for the implementation of shared decision making have been identified. The results can help CPD policy and decision makers, health service researchers, professors as well as clinicians to coordinate their efforts to improve knowledge of CPD and the understanding of its unique contribution to population health.  

In fact, the objective of these CPD activities is to maintain, improve, and broaden health professionals’ knowledge and skills. These activities are considered essential to improving professional practice and, by extension, the quality of care offered by the health system. Evidence on CPD needs to be improved and its use encouraged by those responsible for this important area of knowledge translation. The Research Chair and already completed several projects in this regard.

The lack of a widely accepted instrument to evaluate the impact of CPD on clinical practice makes it almost impossible to compare the efficiency of CPD activities. Using an integrated model to study the behaviour of health professionals, a project on CPD in partnership with knowledge translation has allowed for the development of an all-encompassing, broad based, instrument based on theory, validity, and reliability in order to evaluate the impact of CPD activities on clinical practice. This tool, titled DPC-Reaction Questionnaire, is available in French and English.