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Purpose: We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a virtual community of practice (vCoP) in improving primary health care professionals' (HCPs') attitudes toward empowering patients with chronic disease., Methods: We conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial. Practices were units of randomization, and primary HCPs and patients were units of analysis. Sixty-three practices in Madrid, Catalonia, and the Canary Islands were randomly allocated to the intervention or control groups. Randominzation of practices was performed after HCP and patient recruitment. The patients and statistician were anonymized to group allocation; it was not possible to anonymize HCPs. The intervention was a 12-month multicomponent tailored vCoP built on the Web 2.0 concept and focused on skills toward patient empowerment. The primary outcome was Patient-Provider Orientation Scale (PPOS) score at baseline and at 12 months. The secondary outcome was the Patient Activation Measure (PAM) score., Results: A total of 321 HCPs and 1,921 patients were assessed. The intervention had a positive effect on PPOS total score (0.14 points higher in the vCoP arm; 95% CI, 0.03-0.25; P = .011) and the PPOS Sharing subscale (0.3 points higher in the vCoP arm; 95% CI, 0.15-0.44; P < .001). No effect was found for the PPOS Caring subscale, and no significant differences were found for PAM scores., Conclusions: A vCoP led to a minor increase in the PPOS Sharing component and the total score but not in the Caring component. However, considerable uncertainty remains, given the observed attrition and other limitations of the study. Further research is needed on the effectiveness of the vCoP model and on how to improve HCP engagement. VISUAL ABSTRACT ., (© 2022 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.)

Background: Communities of practice are based on the idea that learning involves a group of people exchanging experiences and knowledge. The e-MPODERA project aims to assess the effectiveness of a virtual community of practice aimed at improving primary healthcare professional attitudes to the empowerment of patients with chronic diseases., Methods: This paper describes the protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial. We will randomly assign 18 primary-care practices per participating region of Spain (Catalonia, Madrid and Canary Islands) to a virtual community of practice or to usual training. The primary-care practice will be the randomization unit and the primary healthcare professional will be the unit of analysis. We will need a sample of 270 primary healthcare professionals (general practitioners and nurses) and 1382 patients. We will perform randomization after professionals and patients are selected. We will ask the intervention group to participate for 12 months in a virtual community of practice based on a web 2.0 platform. We will measure the primary outcome using the Patient-Provider Orientation Scale questionnaire administered at baseline and after 12 months. Secondary outcomes will be the sociodemographic characteristics of health professionals, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of patients, the Patient Activation Measure questionnaire for patient activation and outcomes regarding use of the virtual community of practice. We will calculate a linear mixed-effects regression to estimate the effect of participating in the virtual community of practice., Discussion: This cluster randomized controlled trial will show whether a virtual intervention for primary healthcare professionals improves attitudes to the empowerment of patients with chronic diseases., Trial Registration: ClicalTrials.gov, NCT02757781 . Registered on 25 April 2016. Protocol Version. PI15.01 22 January 2016.