AimsWe explored the effect of an educational intervention on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of healthcare workers (HCWs) towards predatory publishing.MethodsA retrospective pre-post quasi experimental design was implemented on HCWs within King Hussein Cancer Center (KHCC). Following a 60-min educational lecture, a self-administered questionnaire was completed by participants. Pre- and post-intervention scores for familiarity, knowledge, practices, and attitudes were compared using the paired sample t-test. Multivariate linear regression was used to identify predictors of mean differences (MD) of knowledge scores.ResultsA total of 121 respondents completed the questionnaire. The majority of participants demonstrated underwhelming awareness of predatory publishing and average levels of knowledge of their characteristics. Furthermore, respondents did not take the necessary precautions to avoid predatory publishers. The intervention (i.e. the educational lecture) improved familiarity (MD: 13.4; 95%CI: 12.4 – 14.4;p-value < .001), knowledge of predatory journal’s characteristics (MD: 12.9; 95%CI: 11.1 – 14.8;p-value < .001), awareness and perceived compliance to preventive measures (MD: 7.7; 95%CI: 6.7 – 8.6;p-value < .001), and positively influenced attitudes towards open access and safe publishing (MD: 0.8; 95%CI: 0.2 – 1.5;p-value = 0.012). Females had significantly lower familiarity scores (p-value = 0.002). Moreover, those who had published in open access journals, received at least one predatory e-mail, or had more than 5 published original articles had significantly higher familiarity and knowledge scores (allp-value < 0.001).ConclusionsAn educational lecture proved effective in improving awareness of KHCC’s HCW’s to predatory publishers. Nonetheless, the mediocrity of pre-intervention scores raises concerns on effectiveness of the predatory covert practices.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-023-04312-2.