General practice physician knowledge about headache: evaluation of the municipal continual medical education program.

OBJECTIVE Headache is a common condition not always managed satisfactorily by primary care providers (PCPs). In an effort to improve headache care, the Curitiba City Hall in consortia with Hospital de Clínicas da Universidade Federal do Paraná - Brazil developed an educational program directed to the PCPs. The goal of the project was to evaluate, to update and to train the PCP on headache knowledge and care. METHOD The program was designed to have a theoretical phase and a practical phase. Knowledge on headache and medical care of headache were surveyed before and after the theoretical phase thorough a specific questionnaire. RESULTS Significant improvement in post-CME scores on headache prevalence (p<0.001), migraine diagnosis (p<0.001) and management (p=0.01), secondary headache diagnosis (p=0.005) and management (p=0.005) was reached by the respondents. CONCLUSION Improvement in post-CME scores confirms that the program had a significant immediate impact on the PCPs knowledge directly affecting the patient's health.