Online Lifestyle Medicine Continuing Medical Education (CME) Course Completion Predicts Increases in Clinician Knowledge, Confidence, and Practice of Lifestyle Medicine.

Despite growing evidence linking lifestyle changes to disease reversal, lifestyle medicine (LM) is not widely practiced. Lack of clinician training and knowledge is cited as a barrier to LM adoption. This study measures changes in LM knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and practice behaviors following completion of a 5.5-h, asynchronous, online continuing medical education (CME) course. Participants completed a pre- and post-course survey. A repeated-measures linear model tested changes in knowledge, confidence, interest, experience, and practice of LM, after adjusting for age, gender, race, ethnicity, clinical degree/licensure, and presence of a health system value-based care model. Surveys from n = 2954 course participants were analyzed. Overall, statistically significant improvements were observed in self-reported knowledge (+.47 of points) and confidence (+.53 of points) of LM. Participants across the sample reported greater frequency (+.08 of 5 points) and reach (+.10 of 5 points) of LM with their patients (p<.0001 for both). This study demonstrated that a brief, scalable, online CME course can improve LM knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and practice. Future research should examine long-term practice changes as well as differences in outcomes across types of healthcare professionals.