Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To assess the change in frequency and methods with which a pilot group of rural physicians consulted on-line medical resources before and after an educational intervention. DESIGN: Physicians were randomly assigned to an educational intervention or control group. Self-administered questionnaires were completed before and 3 months after the intervention. SETTING: Rural practices in southwestern Ontario. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty rural (defined as a population of 15000 or less) physicians in southwestern Ontario, with a computer with Internet access. INTERVENTIONS: Individualized 3-hour training session on using the World Wide Web to research patient-related questions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency of access and comfort with on-line medical information were compared after intervention with baseline data using the Wilcoxon two-sample test. RESULTS: At follow up, the intervention group showed a significant improvement over the control group in their frequency of accessing the World Wide Web to address patient-related questions (P = .009), in their comfort level in using on-line databases (P = .032), and in their frequency of accessing on-line databases (P = .044). CONCLUSION: Rural physicians' comfort and competence in using computers to address patient problems can be improved by an individualized 3-hour training session.
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Selected References
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