Evaluation of An Online Intervention In Improving General Practitioners' Practice In Prostate Cancer Screening

The incidence of prostate cancer has been rising steadily both globally and in Malaysia. Besides an ageing population, another reason cited to explain the increase, is the corresponding increase in the prostate cancer screening rates, especially using non-invasive tests like the prostate specific antigen (PSA). General practitioners, being front liners in medicine, play an important role in helping men make an informed decision on prostate cancer screening. In Malaysia, about 50% of GPs would routinely screen asymptomatic men and 95% of them would use PSA as a screening tool. Despite this, the evidence for screening is inconclusive, as evidenced from two major trials on screening \[The European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) and Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening trial (PLCO)\]. Furthermore, clinical practice guidelines globally provide conflicting recommendations on this subject, and none has been published in Malaysia to date. Therefore, our study aims to determine the effectiveness of an online training module in helping GPs' better understand the controversies surrounding prostate cancer screening, and in so doing, improve their practice of screening. The investigators hypothesise that GPs who are randomised to receive their online module will be less inclined to screen unnecessarily for prostate cancer.