Evaluation of a course on patient records.

Objectives: To determine whether self-directed learning about (electronic) patient records during a PBL (problem-based learning) block, dealing with the content of disciplines concerned with the diagnosis and therapy of diseases of the abdomen, increased the knowledge of the students with respect to the patient records.
Methods: At the beginning and at the end of the ten-week block the same questionnaire was offered to the students (180). Cohen's d for effect size was used to determine the increase in knowledge.
Results: For those students that answered the questionnaire twice (53), a Cohen's d of 0.94 was obtained.
Conclusions: The knowledge of the students concerning the advantages and limitations of (electronic) patient records increased significantly. The corresponding effect size was large.