Validation of a formula for assigning continuing education credit to printed home study courses.

Objectives: To reevaluate and validate the use of a formula for calculating the amount of continuing education credit to be awarded for printed home study courses.

Methods: Ten home study courses were selected for inclusion in a study to validate the formula, which is based on the number of words, number of final examination questions, and estimated difficulty level of the course. The amount of estimated credit calculated using the a priori formula was compared to the average amount of time required to complete each article based on pharmacists' self-reporting.

Results: A strong positive relationship between the amount of time required to complete the home study courses based on the a priori calculation and the times reported by pharmacists completing the 10 courses was found (p < 0.001). The correlation accounted for 86.2% of the total variability in the average pharmacist reported completion times (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: The formula offers an efficient and accurate means of determining the amount of continuing education credit that should be assigned to printed home study courses.