Resultados de la formación continuada para médicos de atención primaria en la lectura de retinografías en el programa de cribado RETISALUD

Abstract

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of a continuing training project to General Practitioners (GP) in a telemedicine Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) screening program called Retisalud. Methods: A comparative experimental study was conducted. Data was obtained during two 6-month periods before and after the training. Training given was a participative and interactive lesson in 12 health centres belonging to our area by the same two ophthalmologists. Results: A total of 2,584 consecutive diabetic patients were included in the study. Both groups of patients, before and after the training, present the same epidemiologic characteristics (p>0.005). After training, the percentage of pathological patients referred by GPs has increased from 30.5% to 41.4%, (p<0.005). Moreover, it was found that the number of false positives (FP) has decreased significantly from 56.2% (720 cases) to 48.3% (629 cases), (p < 0.05). However, after training, the percentage of studies submitted with no diagnosis was similar to the previous, it just changed from 46.6% to 49.7% (p = 0.125). Conclusions: Medical training by a single clinical session has improved screening of DR in our telemedicine program as it has led to an increase in sensitivity. However, there is still a high percentage of studies submitted with no diagnosis.