Aim: To deliver multidisciplinary high risk foot workshops to educate and determine high risk foot knowledge, attitude and practice of health professionals in the Midwest and Pilbara of Western Australia (WA).
Method: Sixteen Multidisciplinary high risk foot workshops were delivered between June 2012 and February 2013 in the Midwest and Pilbara regions of WA. Participants were trained in High Risk Foot assessment, the 2011 National Health and Medical Research Council Guidelines1 (NHMRC Guidelines) on Prevention, Identification and Management of Foot Complications in Diabetes and use of the MMEx Diabetes Foot Check with a risk calculator. A knowledge, attitude and practice survey was completed at the beginning and end of each workshop with the TurningPoint® audience response system. This innovative system integrates with Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentations and allowed participants to enter survey responses on hand held keypads. The results are quickly translated into charts or graphs to provide instant feedback to the participants and presenter.
Results: A total of 143 health professionals (84.6% female and 11.9% Aboriginal people) were trained in 13 towns in WA. In the pre-test, only 15% correctly stratified a person as intermediate risk when there was one foot risk factor compared to 48% in the post test. Only 19% in the pre-test correctly stratified a person as high risk when there were two foot risk factors present compared to 62% in the post test.
Discussion: A significant change was demonstrated in participating health practitioners’ ability to correctly stratify foot risk according to the 2011 NHMRC guidelines. The TurningPoint® audience response system is a useful and engaging means to assess increases in participants’ knowledge as a result of education.