Information Needs and Information-Seeking Behavior of Primary Care Physicians
Ann Fam Med González-González et al.
5: 345
The Article in Brief
Information Needs and Information-Seeking Behavior of Primary Care Physicians
Ana I. Gonzales-Gonzales, MD, and colleagues
Background Primary care clinicians, on average, address more than 500 clinical topics in their practices and so have very broad information needs. The aim of this study is to determine the information needs and information-seeking patterns among primary care physicians in Spain.
What This Study Found In this study, the most frequent questions asked by doctors relate to diagnosis and treatment of patients’ conditions. The most frequent generic type of question was “what is the cause of symptom X?” Doctors searched for answers to 23% of questions, most often finding answers in a summary of drug information, a textbook, or from a colleague.
Implications
- Primary care doctors’ questions cover a wide range of topics, reflecting the broad scope of primary care practice. These questions are often complex and patient-specific.
- Doctors in this study had short patient visits, allowing time to answer only 1 in 5 of their questions. Better methods are needed to provide answers to questions that arise in short visits.
