The information‐seeking behaviour of doctors: a review of the evidence
Abstract
This paper provides a narrative review of the available literature from the past 10 years (1996–2006) that focus on the information seeking behaviour of doctors. The review considers the literature in three sub‐themes: Theme 1, the Information Needs of Doctors includes information need, frequency of doctors’ questions and types of information needs; Theme 2, Information Seeking by Doctors embraces pattern of information resource use, time spent searching, barriers to information searching and information searching skills; Theme 3, Information Sources Utilized by Doctors comprises the number of sources utilized, comparison of information sources consulted, computer usage, ranking of information resources, printed resource use, personal digital assistant (PDA) use, electronic database use and the Internet. The review is wide ranging. It would seem that the traditional methods of face‐to‐face communication and use of hard‐copy evidence still prevail amongst qualified medical staff in the clinical setting. The use of new technologies embracing the new digital age in information provision may influence this in the future. However, for now, it would seem that there is still research to be undertaken to uncover the most effective methods of encouraging clinicians to use the best evidence in everyday practice.
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Even when studies exist, they can have conflicting findings arising from heterogeneous patient populations, study designs of variable quality, or nonstandard endpoints.
“Second, even when studies exist, they can have conflicting findings arising from heterogeneous patient populations, study designs of variable quality, or nonstandard endpoints.”
From Answering real-world clinical questions using large language model, retrieval-augmented generation, and agentic systems (2025) · cites this paper as [10]
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- Authors
- Davies, K.
- Affiliations
- Loughborough University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Davies, Karen
- ORCID
- Davies, Karen
- Venue
- Health Information & Libraries Journal
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2007-06
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 78-94
- ISSN
- 1471-1834 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-1842
- OpenAlex
- W1963911880
- Cited by
- 356
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 29 · 2013: 32 · 2012: 33
- FWCI
- 3.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- erratum (2010-11-03)
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Health Information & Libraries Journal (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Sciences Research and Education
- Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Library Science and Information Literacy
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Keywords
- information seeking, physicians, physician information needs, information sources, information search skills, online databases, internet use, personal digital assistants, computer use, clinical decision-making
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Attitude of Health Personnel, Attitude to Computers, Clinical Competence, Female, United Kingdom, Humans, Inservice Training, Interprofessional Relations, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Male, Middle Aged, Patient Care Planning, Physicians, Surveys and Questionnaires, Information Storage and Retrieval, Evidence-Based Medicine, Internet, Professional Role, Qualitative Research
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