The purpose of the study was to investigate if differences in levels of knowledge existed between Danish and English training and specialist psychiatrists. This is important in the context of the free (and growing) movement of the medical workforce across European Union (EU) countries’ borders.

A complete balanced two-way factorial study design was used. Ten training and ten specialist psychiatrists were recruited in each country from reputable, university hospitals. They answered 50 multiple choice questions (MCQs), translated into the appropriate language, consisting of four subcategories of questions: psychology (15 MCQs), psychopharmacology (10 MCQs), neuroscience (five MCQs) and psychopathology (20 MCQs). No memory or other types of aids were allowed at the knowledge test. A two-way analysis of variance was used to analyse the total knowledge score (number of correct answers) and the component subscores. Levene’s test of equality of error variances was used to test for variance homogeneity.

There were significant differences in total knowledge and psychology knowledge by country and level of training. UK doctors scored 3.10 points higher than Danish doctors, with 95% confidence interval (0.97, 5.23). The knowledge of the specialists was also significantly superior to that of the training psychiatrists, with 2.30 higher score, 95% confidence interval (0.17, 4.43). In the sub-categories only the scores in the psychology section were significantly different. UK doctors scored 2.30 higher than Danish doctors, with 95% confidence interval (1.15, 3.45). Specialists scored 1.20 higher than non-specialists with 95% confidence interval (0.05, 2.35).

The results indicate that there is a significant difference in level of knowledge between psychiatrists in these two EU-countries, England and Denmark. This difference seemed to be chiefly the result of different knowledge of psychology. The disparity could be a result of the fundamentally different post-graduate training system in psychiatry in the two countries. Surprisingly, the differences in total knowledge and psychology knowledge between countries were larger than the differences between levels of training. The difference in knowledge is worrying taking into consideration that there is free movement of the workforce, including doctors, across the EU. The results here need further confirmation in future studies with greater numbers, more countries involved and perhaps additional measurements to MCQs.