The effective and timely delivery of quality health care services to the general population has been one of the highest priorities of the Saudi government. However, this continues to be an enormous task, considering that the health manpower in the Kingdom has traditionally been composed mainly of expatriates who bring with them diverse educational and cultural backgrounds. Although this diversity has not been a hindrance in the effective provision of health care services, it is understandable that differences in cultural backgrounds among providers and receivers of care may have a serious influence on the total functioning of the entire health care system. This can be made worse by the fact that these health care providers also have widely diverging educational and professional backgrounds and, not surprisingly, have different approaches to providing care.In the midst of the above diversities, continuing medical education (CME) may prove to. be a "unifying" force for the effective functioning of the Kingdom's health care sector. This is because CME is a lifelong process of mastering professional competence, knowledge and skills relevant to one's practice specialties. It keeps health care professionals updated about new diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. CME reinforces high-quality care practices over the course of entire careers of professionals, and has been recognized as valuable because the educational process is somehow translated into improved outcomes for patients. 1The CME process is usually accomplished through meetings with other professionals, attending professional gatherings, such as conferences and symposia, and reading related literature, although other methods are also available. For example, primary care physicians involved in caring for diabetic patients considered their colleagues to be the second most important source of information that influenced their professional behavior.2 On the other hand, a comparative study of the CME needs of physicians working in Alexandria, Egypt, and the Asir Region, Saudi Arabia, found that lectures and periodicals were the preferred educational strategy. 3Recognizing that an effective continuing medical education program can be instrumental in enhancing the performance of the health care sector, especially one with a multinational workforce, this study was conducted with the following objectives: 1) to gain an insight into the perceived needs for CME among health care professionals in the Kingdom; and 2) to examine the impact of the cost of CME on future attendance to CME activities. Material and MethodsThree thousand (3000) questionnaires were sent to a random sample of health care professionals involved in the provision of health care services in different hospitals throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These questionnaires were distributed through the Kingdom's 19 regional health affairs directorates between March and September 1995. The questionnaire did not require any identification of the respondents and was written in both Arabic and English to enc...