Physicians utilisation of internet medical databases at the tertiary health institutions in Osun State, south west, Nigeria

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the extent, purpose, determinants and the impact of the utilization of Internet medical databases among the respondents.

Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional survey of 540 randomly selected physicians at the two tertiary health institutions in Osun State, south west, Nigeria.

Result: A total of 444 (82.2%) physicians completed the questionnaires. All the respondents have used the internet medical databases within the last 4 weeks of the study. Majority, (53.8%) used the internet resources at least once in 2 weeks, while 12.2% used the resources every day. The online resources are mainly sought for Routine patient care and for Research purposes. pubmed (70.3%), hinari (69.0%), and Free medical journals (60.1%) are the frequently used online databases/digital archives. The internet resources has positively impacted the Clinical practice (40.0%) and Research output (65.5%) of the physicians.

Conclusion: There had been considerable increase in the extent and quality of utilization of online medical databases which has positively impacted on the Clinical practice and Research output of the physicians. Ease of finding the needed information and the availability of evidence based resources are the major determinants of the databases utilized.