Improving on-line skills and knowledge. A randomized trial of teaching rural physicians to use on-line medical information.

Full 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.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Kronick, Jonathan (J); Blake, Catherine (C); Munoz, Eeva (E); Heilbrunn, Lila (L); Dunikowski, Lynn (L); Milne, William Kenneth (WK);

Affiliation: Office of Professional and Educational Development, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London. jonathan.kronick(-atsign-)med.uwo.ca

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Clinical Trial; Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Canadian family physician Médecin de famille canadien (Can Fam Physician), published in Canada. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Mar; vol 49 (issue ) : pp 312-7

Dates: Created 2003/04/04; Completed 2003/05/01; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12675544, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.