Recognizing cardiac murmurs in childhood: a survey of physicians’ approaches and knowledge levels

ABSTRACT

Objective

This study aimed to assess physicians’ approach to cardiac murmurs and their level of knowledge about this sign, which is a crucial finding in childhood cardiac anomalies.

Methods

The study intended to include all family physicians in the Adıyaman province of Turkey, but ultimately 150 out of 210 physicians participated and was completed with a percentage response rate of 71%. Participants were asked about their approach to cardiac murmurs, answered knowledge questions, and completed a questionnaire on demographic characteristics. Subsequently, eight heart sounds were played, and participants were asked to identify the nature of each sound.

Results

Family medicine specialists (all scores were p < 0.001) and physicians who completed a pediatric internship lasting over a month (knowledge score p = 0.012, behavioral score p = 0.021, recording score p = 0.01) demonstrated significantly higher knowledge, approach, and recording scores. Age and years in the profession showed a negative correlation with recording scores.

Conclusions

The study highlights the significant impact of various factors such as gender, specialization, internship duration, experience, and theoretical knowledge on the ability to recognize and approach cardiac murmurs. These findings underscore the importance of incorporating these factors into medical education and development programs, especially those aimed at improving cardiac examination skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Cardiac murmurs
• cardiac auscultation
• family medicine
• family physician
• childhood

Declaration of financial/other relationships

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Author contributions

Osman Küçükkelepçe: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing. Fedli Emre Kılıç: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Erdoğan Öz: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration.Osman Kurt: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing. Mehmet Emin Parlak: Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Hüseyin Tanrıverdi: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Supervision, Project administration.

Data availability statement

Data will be available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.