A recent study examined continuing medical education (CME) participants' "intent to change" after the class in an effort to determine whether the CME content was appropriately tied to stated learning outcomes. Specifically, they looked at data for 85 American Association of Neurological Surgeons-sponsored CME activities, comparing the 424 objectives with 1,950 intent-to-change statements. The retrospective mixed-methods thematic content analysis used data from 2011-2016. According to the findings, thematic patterns of recurrent intent-to-change statements that correlated with CME objectives focused on topics including resident education, complication avoidance, clinical best practices and evidence, new innovations and novel surgical methods. About 25% of unmatched statements prompted new learning objectives in subsequent years, while more than a third of the intent-to-change statements did not relate to any meeting objective. The authors noted the analysis "provides information for examination of both meeting planner and learner attitudes for future CME activity planning."

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