JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Climate and ecological emergency are major threats to human health. The healthcare system should reduce its environmental impact. General practitioners (GPs) have an important role to play in planetary health (PH). The PCEH (Primary Care Environment and Health) course offers first-year GP residents of the Montpellier-Nîmes faculty of medicine a blended-learning course on environmental health. A 30–45-minutes e-learning module on PH has been added.

Objective:

To assess the impact of the e-learning module part on participants’ knowledge and behavior change.

Methods:

It was a before-and-after study. In this module, 3 parts were available: introduction, degradation of ecosystems and health (based on IPCC report and planetary limits), eco-responsibility (based on the SHIFT Project report on the impact of healthcare system on the environment). The questionnaire used Likert scales to self-assess 10 points of knowledge and 5 points of PH-related behavior.

Results:

95 participants completed the pre-post-test questionnaires (response rate 55%). The mean scores for participants' pre-test knowledge and behaviors were 3.88/5 (±1.12) and 3.45/5 (±1.12) respectively. The results showed a statistically significant increase in knowledge scores for most of the points covered (+0.35/5 i.e. +7%, p<0.05), as well as for all the behavioral scores reported (+0.74/5 i.e. +14.8%, p≤0.01).

Conclusions:

The PH module of the PCEH course significantly improved self-assessment knowledge scores and positively modified PH behaviors among GP residents. Further work is needed to study whether these self-declared behaviors are translated into practice.