Effectiveness of an Online Course on Fracture-Related Infections

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of an online course to enable orthopaedic surgeons to acquire the core competencies necessary to prevent and treat fracture-related infections (FRI). This study included orthopaedic surgeons and residents from Latin American countries who attended an online course focused on FRI. The online course included: didactic lectures, small-group clinical case discussions, and panel case discussions. The course was delivered using Zoom® platform and designed to address four core competencies: prevention, definition and diagnosis, antimicrobial therapy, and surgical treatment. An online questionnaire was created distributing 16 questions through six clinical scenarios. Participants were invited to answer the questionnaire before and after the course. Sixty of the 78 course participants answered the pre-course, and 42 the post-course assessment. Relative to before the course, the mean post-course assessment score rose significantly for prevention of FRI (4.1 before and 4.5 after; p = 0.014), definition and diagnosis (2.4 before and 3.4 after; p = 0.001), and surgical treatment (2.2 before and 2.8 after; p = 0.011). The final score encompassing all four core competencies also rose significantly (2.7 before and 3.3 after; p = 0.001). The online course on FRI was feasible and effective, significantly increasing course users’ knowledge of overall competency in managing FRI.