Table 5.

Doctors' use of UpToDate and the personal digital assistant (PDA)

	Only 23 respondents who used both UpToDate and PDAs with medical software applications
Characteristic	UpToDate	PDA	p value
Time spent per week*	1.0 hr (1.0 – 2.0)	1.0 hr (0.5 – 2.0)	0.21
Frequency of use per week*	3.0 times (2.0 – 5.0)	12.0 times (5.0 – 18.0)	< 0.001
Usefulness†	1.0 (1.0 – 1.0)	2.0 (1.0 – 2.0)	0.005

* Data are presented as median (interquartile range); comparisons made using the Wilcoxon signed rank test.

^† Data are presented as median score (interquartile range) on a Likert scale in which 1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = not sure, 4 = disagree, 5 = strongly disagree, when doctors were asked if UpToDate and the PDA was useful for acquiring medical knowledge; comparison made using the Wilcoxon signed rank test.