Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Novena Campus Clinical Sciences Building 11 Mandalay Road, Singapore, 308232, Singapore.
Singapore Institute of Technology, 10 Dover Drive, Singapore, 138683, Singapore.
BMC Prim Care. 2024 May 18;25(1):172. doi: 10.1186/s12875-024-02429-x.
The growth of medical knowledge and patient care complexity calls for improved clinician access to evidence-based resources. This study aimed to explore the primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore.
A convenience sample of ten doctors and ten nurses was recruited. We conducted semi-structured face-to-face in-depth interviews. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using thematic content analysis.
Of the 20 participants, eight doctors and ten nurses worked at government-funded polyclinics and two doctors worked in private practice. Most clinicians sought clinical information daily at the point-of-care. The most searched-for information by clinicians in practice was less common conditions. Clinicians preferred evidence-based resources such as clinical practice guidelines and UpToDate®. Clinical practice guidelines were mostly used when they were updated or based on memory. Clinicians also commonly sought answers from their peers. Furthermore, clinicians frequently use smartphones to access the Google search engine and UpToDate® app. The barriers to accessing clinical information included the lack of time, internet surfing separation of work computers, limited search functions in the organisation's server, and limited access to medical literature databases. The facilitators of accessing clinical information included convenience, easy access, and trustworthiness of information sources.
Most primary care clinicians in our study sought clinical information at the point-of-care daily and reported increasing use of smartphones for information-seeking. Future research focusing on interventions to improve access to credible clinical information for primary care clinicians at the point-of-care is recommended.
This study has been reviewed by NHG Domain Specific Review Board (NHG DSRB) (the central ethics committee) for ethics approval. NHG DSRB Reference Number: 2018/01355 (31/07/2019).
医学知识的增长和患者护理的复杂性要求临床医生能够更好地获取基于证据的资源。本研究旨在探讨新加坡初级保健临床医生在临床实践中信息搜索的偏好、障碍和促进因素。
我们招募了十名医生和十名护士的便利样本。我们进行了半结构化的面对面深入访谈。采访进行了录音、逐字转录，并使用主题内容分析进行了分析。
20 名参与者中，有 8 名医生和 10 名护士在政府资助的综合诊疗所工作，有 2 名医生在私人诊所工作。大多数临床医生在护理点每天都在寻找临床信息。临床医生在实践中最常搜索的信息是不太常见的病症。临床医生更喜欢循证资源，如临床实践指南和 UpToDate®。临床实践指南通常在更新或基于记忆时使用。临床医生也经常向同行寻求答案。此外，临床医生经常使用智能手机访问谷歌搜索引擎和 UpToDate®应用程序。获取临床信息的障碍包括缺乏时间、工作电脑上网分离、组织服务器中有限的搜索功能以及对医学文献数据库的有限访问。获取临床信息的促进因素包括便利性、易于访问和信息来源的可信度。
在我们的研究中，大多数初级保健临床医生每天在护理点寻求临床信息，并报告越来越多地使用智能手机获取信息。建议未来的研究侧重于改善初级保健临床医生在护理点获取可信临床信息的干预措施。
这项研究已由 NHG 特定领域审查委员会（NHG DSRB）（中央伦理委员会）审查，以获得伦理批准。NHG DSRB 参考号：2018/01355（2019 年 7 月 31 日）。
