Introduction

Health education is a major step in the fight against preventable diseases such as cervical cancer. The Cancer Epidemiology Research Programme at the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) along with the e-learning program e-oncología have been developing an extensive virtual training program on HPV and associated diseases for over 8 years.

Methods

Since the launching of the first generic course on Cervical Cancer Prevention in 2011, three more courses have been developed to target specific professional profiles and topics. Furthermore, the generic course has been translated to 7 languages, including Japanese and Chinese.

The digital content of all the courses has been developed using interactive elements and multimedia to facilitate learning. The modular structure of the courses allows for the addition of specific modules including the prevention and screening protocols for the country of interest. In evaluating the program the model developed by Moore, Green and Gallis (2009) has been used.

Results

There are two modes of access to the courses: classrooms that are permanently open with free access to any participant and closed classes for specific groups of students with similar interests.

The open classroom model is similar to the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms, i.e. it is accessible to a large number of participants without cost. Students can consult tutors who are permanently available. This methodology results in a completion rate usually over the 60%.

* Of all students, over 10,000 from Latin America.

Conclusions

The use of e-learning has proven to be very useful to provide in short time a large number of health professionals with evidence-based information on cervical cancer prevention.

The analysis of the results indicates that:

Even with a MOOC type model of delivery it is important to monitor and tutor students to ensure high success rates.

Course content should be adapted and adjusted to different professional profiles.