Printed educational materials: effects on professional practice and healthcare outcomes

Starting the year with evidence! There is a Cochrane Collaboration systematic review: Printed educational materials: effects on professional practice and healthcare outcomes. The methods are, of course, given in detail and the findings of the review explained clearly. They reviewed 84 research studies. To quote from the plain English summary 

"The aim of this review was to find out whether printed educational material distributed to healthcare professionals can improve their practice and in turn improve patient health. 

"Key messages: The results of this review indicate that printed educational materials probably improve the practice of healthcare professionals and probably make little or no difference to patient health. The results also suggest that computerised versions may make little or no difference to healthcare professionals' practice compared to printed versions of the same printed educational material. Further research with rigorous methodology is likely to have an important impact on our confidence in these estimates of effect, and may change the estimate." The review is open access at https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD004398.pub4  

Photo by Sheila Webber: doorway, December 2020