An evaluation of pediatric residency education in conveying immunization knowledge.

Background: The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education now requires all pediatric residency training programs assess medical knowledge competency.

Purpose: The goal of this project was to determine whether pediatric residency training using patient-based/experiential teaching made residents competent in the area of immunization knowledge or whether additional teaching strategies might need to be developed.

Methods: Cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs were used to determine improvement in immunization knowledge on a multiple-choice quiz over the 3 years of residency training.

Results: Both the cross-sectional and longitudinal data showed a statistically significant improvement in performance between residency training Years 1 and 2 but not between Years 2 and 3 on the quiz. This statistically significant relationship by year of training was seen despite the modest reliability of the short quiz and the sample size.

Conclusions: This study shows that pediatric residency education using patient-based/experiential teaching is effective in teaching first year residents about immunization knowledge but is not as effective for 2nd- and 3rd-year residents. Other instructional methods such as computer-based cases could be employed during the 2nd and 3rd years.