Improving general practitioners' knowledge of chronic hepatitis C infection

Sir, Chronic infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) affects over 170 million individuals worldwide1 and is a major healthcare concern in the UK. Primary care physicians are often the first health-care professionals to see infected individuals. In the UK, general practitioners (GPs) still have little knowledge about hepatitis C, despite a public campaign,2 this is comparable with other countries such as Australia and America.3,,4 We attempted to improve knowledge regarding HCV by holding educational programmes consisting of lunch-and-learn sessions accommodating 150 GPs, and assessing knowledge of HCV with a standardized pre-test and post-test questionnaire. We incorporated five key elements into these meetings: value to healthcare staff, incentives, repeated exposures, commitment …