Table 2.
Information sources used by family doctors to find answers to 399 questions
| Information source | No of times used (% of total) | Time spent seeking answers (seconds)*
|
No (%) of searches that were successful† | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean (SD) | Median (IQR) | |||
| Human (such as doctor, pharmacist) | 161 (36) | 109 (104) | 68 (150) | 127 (79) |
| Non-prescribing 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) |
SD=standard deviation, IQR=interquartile range.
*
Kruskal-Wallis test, with Bonferroni corrected P values, showed that average time spent with non-prescribing print sources and with computers was higher than with prescribing texts (P<0.01) or posted information (P<0.05). There were no other significant differences in paired comparisons.
†
5×2 χ2 test with 4 degrees of freedom was significant (P<0.001).