Vice Chair for Education; Head, Education and Curriculum Support; Associate Curator; and Coordinator, Systematic Review Services, NYU Health Sciences Library, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY,
Director of the Kern Institute, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI,
J Med Libr Assoc. 2020 Apr;108(2):219-228. doi: 10.5195/jmla.2020.875. Epub 2020 Apr 1.
Evidence-based medicine practices of medical students in clinical scenarios are not well understood. Optimal foraging theory (OFT) is one framework that could be useful in breaking apart information-seeking patterns to determine effectiveness and efficiency of different methods of information seeking. The aims of this study were to use OFT to determine the number and type of resources used in information seeking when medical students answer a clinical question, to describe common information-seeking patterns, and identify patterns associated with higher quality answers to a clinical question.
Medical students were observed via screen recordings while they sought evidence related to a clinical question and provided a written response for what they would do for that patient based on the evidence that they found.
Half (51%) of study participants used only 1 source before answering the clinical question. While the participants were able to successfully and efficiently navigate point-of-care tools and search engines, searching PubMed was not favored, with only half (48%) of PubMed searches being successful. There were no associations between information-seeking patterns and the quality of answers to the clinical question.
Clinically experienced medical students most frequently relied on point-of-care tools alone or in combination with PubMed to answer a clinical question. OFT can be used as a framework to understand the information-seeking practices of medical students in clinical scenarios. This has implications for both teaching and assessment of evidence-based medicine in medical students.
医学学生在临床场景中应用循证医学实践的情况尚不清楚。最佳觅食理论（OFT）是一种可以用于分解信息搜索模式的框架，以确定不同信息搜索方法的有效性和效率。本研究的目的是使用 OFT 来确定医学学生回答临床问题时信息搜索所使用的资源数量和类型，描述常见的信息搜索模式，并确定与临床问题高质量答案相关的模式。
通过屏幕录制观察医学学生在寻找与临床问题相关的证据时的情况，并根据他们找到的证据提供针对该患者的书面回答。
一半（51%）的研究参与者在回答临床问题之前仅使用了 1 个来源。尽管参与者能够成功且有效地使用即时护理工具和搜索引擎，但他们不太倾向于使用 PubMed 进行搜索，只有一半（48%）的 PubMed 搜索是成功的。信息搜索模式与临床问题答案的质量之间没有关联。
有临床经验的医学学生最常单独或组合使用即时护理工具和 PubMed 来回答临床问题。OFT 可作为理解医学学生在临床场景中信息搜索实践的框架。这对医学学生循证医学的教学和评估都有影响。
