Martinez-Silveira, M., & Oddone, N. (2008). Information-Seeking

Martinez-Silveira, M., & Oddone, N. (2008). Information-seeking behavior of medical residents in clinical practice in Bahia, Brazil. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 96(4), 381-384. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.96.4.016 Content Summary: The journal article in question starts off by stating that several researchers around the world have explored issues related to clinical practice over the last generation or so, that being about twenty years. Many of the studies and reviews center on therapy or diagnosis.

However, the authors of this study notes that few studies have focused specifically on health professionals' information needs in Brazil and none of the ones that are already in the literature included the residents as part of the study. The study notes that medical residency in Brazil is a graduate-level method of study. It is a mode of study that is carried out under the supervision of a good number of medical professionals but is limited by law to sixty hours a week.

This study centers on such studies at the Professor Edgar Santos University (HUPES) of the Federal University of Bahia Medical College (UFBA-FAMEB) in Salvador, which is the capital city of the Brazilian state of Bahia. The sample for the study centers on 120 residents enrolled in a total of 23 different specialties in the year 2004. Of those 120 residents, all of the third-year people (17 in total) were selected as well as two residents each from the first and second year of study. The overall pool of survey reponders was 85 in total.

The survey technique was a survey with a critical incident component so as to explore residents' reported information needs and behavior. The questionnaire used had a total of six parts and thirty-five questions that explored demographic data, respondents' behavior when faced with a clinical information need, habits and preferences for information resources management, information-related skills and examination of a particular situation in which the resident needed information to support clinical care. Before the final survey, a pilot version of the survey was issued to ten senior medical students.

The final survey was analyzed using SPSS version 12. Of the 85 distributed questionnaires, there were a total of 73 respondents, a response rate of 86%. Of those, the age range of repsonders was 23 to 53, 39 were in their first year of residence, 24 were in their second year, 10 were in their third year and 39 of the respondents were male. Every single respondent reported having information needs in the last thirty days. The most frequent categories of knowledge needed was drug therapy and diagnosis.

Other reasons for searches included doubts about the proper course of treatment and rare medical cases. About four in ten (41%) reported visiting a medical library while about a fourth rarely visited and a third never visited. Most residents reported doing their own knowledge searches and the database of choice was MEDLINE. However, most.