Information-Seeking Behavior of Medical Residents in Brazil
This paper summarizes and evaluates Martinez-Silveira and Oddone's (2008) study on the information-seeking behavior of medical residents in clinical practice in Bahia, Brazil. The study surveyed 85 residents across 23 specialties at a university in Salvador, achieving an 86% response rate. It examined how residents identified and addressed clinical information needs, which resources they preferred, and how often they used medical libraries or databases such as MEDLINE. Key findings include a strong preference for drug therapy and diagnosis information, reliance on privately owned books, limited library use, and minimal training in database searching. The paper also discusses the study's implications and the authors' caution that findings may not be generalizable beyond Brazil.
- Overview of the Study: Background context and gap in existing literature
- Research Design and Methodology: Survey design, sample, and analytical approach
- Key Findings: Response rates, information needs, and resource preferences
- Discussion and Implications: Library use patterns and generalizability concerns
- Conclusion: Contribution and limitations of the study
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper faithfully summarizes a primary journal article, covering both its methodology and findings without distorting the source material.
- The evaluation section moves beyond description to address the broader implications and limitations of the study, including the authors' own caution about generalizability.
- The writing is concise and well-organized, separating content summary from evaluative commentary in a clear two-part structure.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective article annotation and critical summary — a foundational academic skill that requires the writer to accurately represent a study's purpose, methods, results, and limitations while also offering brief evaluative commentary. This technique is essential in literature reviews and annotated bibliographies.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with background context on the study's subject and gap in the literature, then moves through research design and participant demographics, key quantitative findings, and finally a discussion of the results and their limitations. The two-section source structure (content summary followed by evaluation) is preserved and expanded into clearly labeled HTML sections for readability.
Overview of the Study
Reference: 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
Over the past generation — roughly twenty years — researchers around the world have explored a wide range of issues related to clinical practice. Many of these studies and reviews have centered on therapy or diagnosis as their primary focus. However, Martinez-Silveira and Oddone (2008) note that very few studies have focused specifically on the information needs of health professionals in Brazil, and none of those already present in the literature included medical residents as part of their study populations.
The study also establishes important context about medical residency in Brazil. Medical residency in that country is a graduate-level method of study carried out under the supervision of qualified medical professionals and is limited by law to sixty hours per week. The study centers on residents at a university in Salvador, which is the capital city of the Brazilian state of Bahia.
Research Design and Methodology
The sample for the study consisted of 120 residents enrolled across a total of 23 different medical specialties in 2004. Of those 120 residents, all third-year participants (17 in total) were selected, along with two residents each from the first and second years of study, producing an overall pool of 85 potential survey respondents.
The survey technique incorporated a critical incident component in order to explore residents' reported information needs and behavior. The questionnaire consisted of six parts and thirty-five questions, covering demographic data, respondents' behavior when faced with a clinical information need, habits and preferences for information resource management, information-related skills, and an examination of a specific situation in which the resident needed information to support clinical care. Before the final version was distributed, a pilot survey was administered to ten senior medical students to refine the instrument. The final survey data were analyzed using SPSS version 12.
Key Findings
Of the 85 distributed questionnaires, 73 were completed and returned, yielding a response rate of 86%. Among the respondents, ages ranged from 23 to 53 years. Thirty-nine were in their first year of residency, 24 were in their second year, and 10 were in their third year. Thirty-nine of the respondents were male. Every single respondent reported having experienced information needs within the previous thirty days.
The most frequently cited categories of knowledge needed were drug therapy and diagnosis. Other reasons residents conducted information searches included doubts about the proper course of treatment and encounters with rare medical cases. Regarding library use, approximately four in ten respondents (41%) reported visiting a medical library, while about a quarter reported rarely visiting and a third reported never visiting one.
Most residents reported conducting their own knowledge searches, and the database of choice was MEDLINE. However, the majority of residents had received no formal training in using MEDLINE or any other bibliographic database. The volume of search results to sort through was cited as a major and common obstacle in their information-seeking process.
Conclusion
Overall, Martinez-Silveira and Oddone's study makes a meaningful contribution to the literature on health professionals' information behavior, particularly within a Brazilian context that had been largely underexplored. By specifically including medical residents — a population previously absent from Brazilian health information studies — the research fills an important gap. At the same time, the limitations the authors themselves identify, particularly around generalizability and the absence of formal database training among residents, underscore the need for continued research and for improved information literacy education within medical residency programs.
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