Table 2.
Information sources used by family physicians to find answers to 399 questions
| Time spent seeking answers (seconds)* | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Information source | No. of times used (% of total) | Mean (SD) | Median (IQR) | No. (%) of searches that were successful† |
| Human (such as physician, pharmacist) | 161 (36) | 109 (104) | 68 (150) | 127 (79) |
| Nonprescribing printed information (such as textbooks, journal articles) | 143 (32) | 100 (89) | 70 (75) | 75 (52) |
| Prescribing text | 113 (25) | 70 (66) | 50 (60) | 96 (85) |
| Printed information posted on walls | 17 (4) | 42 (34) | 35 (45) | 14 (82) |
| Computer application (such as CD Rom, Internet) | 10 (2) | 395 (552) | 180 (210) | 2 (20) |
| Total | 444 (100) | 102 (137) | 60 (90) | 314 (71) |
| IQR = interquartile range. | ||||
*
Kruskal-Wallis test, with Bonferroni corrected P values, showed that the average time spent with nonprescribing print sources and computers exceeded that with prescribing texts (P < 0.01) or posted information P < 0.01). No other significant differences in paired comparisons.
†
A χ2 test using a 5 × 2 contigency table (with 4 df) was significant (P < 0.001).