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APA's 1998 annual meeting in Toronto will be a hard act to follow: The meeting set new records in attendance and garnered high marks from participants for nearly every aspect, according to the meeting's evaluation report.
The report, which was prepared by Kathleen Debenham, administrator of continuing education and evaluation in APA's Office of Education, was presented to the Scientific Program Committee at its July planning meeting in Washington, D.C.
"Ninety-six percent of respondents to the General Evaluation believed the quality of the educational sessions to be excellent," states the report. "They consistently agreed that the annual meeting program met its educational objectives, addressed current issues in psychiatry, incorporated research findings, and provided information they will use in their practice."
Total attendance at the meeting was 17,727, exceeding the Scientific Program Committee's expectations and beating out the previous highest annual meeting attendance by 189. The old record was established during the 1996 meeting in New York.
Moreover, the annual meeting continues to benefit from its reputation as one of not only the country's but the world's premier psychiatric meetings. This year there was a record 6,197 international registrants-1,521 more than last year-from 95 countries. In addition to Canada, countries represented by more than 150 registrants included Spain (408), France (347), Italy (286), United Kingdom (226), Portugal (223), Sweden (221), Netherlands (213), Argentina (184), Germany (196), Norway (164) and Brazil (153).
The evaluation again showed that registrants are highly satisfied with the meeting. An impressive 97 percent stated that the annual meeting provided them with information useful in clinical practice, consistent with the finding that 96 percent believed that current research findings were incorporated into annual meeting sessions. Another 96 percent felt that the sessions had met their educational objectives.
New this year was a special track of sessions developed by the Scientific Program Committee in collaboration with the National Institute on Drug Abuse focusing on drug abuse research and treatment. The track appeared to have met its goal of bringing current addiction research to the attention of general psychiatrists: more than 90 percent of respondents called the special track "an excellent learning format."
Also introduced this year was a variety of strategies to expand monitoring of industry-supported symposia (ISS) to ensure that the material presented in these sessions is balanced and unbiased (Psychiatric News, May 1). The results of the ISS evaluation indicate that the measures were successful since the percentage of respondents who agreed that "multiple viewpoints were presented" in the sessions and that "a balanced view of the topic was presented" was higher than the percentage recorded in the previous three years. The Scientific Program Committee plans to continue close monitoring of the ISS at all APA meetings to "ensure maintenance of the current high level of educational quality and independence of APA's commercially supported programs," Debenham reported.
The number of annual meeting registrants who were psychiatrists was 12,280, 2 percent higher than the figure for the 1996 and 1997 meetings. Of that number 1,576 were residents. Among the nonphysician participants at the meeting (approximately 3 percent), nurses made up the largest group-1.2 percent.
Evaluation respondents were asked to identify their primary work setting. The percentage of respondents indicating "solo or group private practice" has held steady over the last seven years, between 35 and 40 percent. Other categories of work settings have remained fairly constant as well: general hospital, 14 percent; university hospital, 13 percent; state/local facility, 8 percent; CMHC, 7 percent; V.A. facility, 6 percent; and staff-model HMO, 1 percent.
While there were few criticisms of the quality of the scientific program in Toronto, said Debenham, the Scientific Program Committee is never content to ride on past success. Rather, she said, the extremely high levels of satisfaction demonstrate the effectiveness of the committee's continual fine-tuning of the meeting based on evaluation results.
Respondents did point out a few areas where they would like to see some changes, however. Meeting registrants continue to request additional sessions that focus on psychotherapy, particularly psychodynamic psychotherapy, and expansion of the Medical Update sessions, including alternative medicine.
Moreover, some respondents complained about not being able to attend sessions because of overcrowding, shortage of hotel rooms reserved by APA for meeting registrants, and inadequate shuttle-bus schedules for outlying hotels.
The evaluation of APA's 1998 annual meeting was based on responses to the General Evaluation Form included with registration materials, distributed on site, and mailed to registrants after the meeting. Forms could also be completed at 10 computer terminals in the APA Resource Center in the Exhibit Hall. This turned out to be quite popular, attracting about 1,882 registrants-almost twice as many that chose this option last year. The overall response rate was 33 percent, the highest ever.
APA regards the annual meeting as one of the Association's most important services to members. Thus, the evaluation survey is an important tool for ensuring that it continues to provide high-quality continuing education in an attractive setting to APA members, said Debenham.
Next year's meeting will be held May 15 to 20 in Washington, D.C.