Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study

Background: The growth of medical knowledge and patient care complexity calls for improved clinician access to evidence-based resources. This study aimed to explore the primary care clinicians’ preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore. M...

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Main Authors: Lee, Mauricette Moling, Tang, Wern Ee, Smith, Helen Elizabeth, Car, Lorainne Tudor
Other Authors: Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/179604
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-179604
record_format dspace
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Evidence-based medicine
Information-seeking behaviour
spellingShingle Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Evidence-based medicine
Information-seeking behaviour
Lee, Mauricette Moling
Tang, Wern Ee
Smith, Helen Elizabeth
Car, Lorainne Tudor
Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study
description Background: The growth of medical knowledge and patient care complexity calls for improved clinician access to evidence-based resources. This study aimed to explore the primary care clinicians’ preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore. Methods: A convenience sample of ten doctors and ten nurses was recruited. We conducted semi-structured face-to-face in-depth interviews. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using thematic content analysis. Results: Of the 20 participants, eight doctors and ten nurses worked at government-funded polyclinics and two doctors worked in private practice. Most clinicians sought clinical information daily at the point-of-care. The most searched-for information by clinicians in practice was less common conditions. Clinicians preferred evidence-based resources such as clinical practice guidelines and UpToDate®. Clinical practice guidelines were mostly used when they were updated or based on memory. Clinicians also commonly sought answers from their peers. Furthermore, clinicians frequently use smartphones to access the Google search engine and UpToDate® app. The barriers to accessing clinical information included the lack of time, internet surfing separation of work computers, limited search functions in the organisation’s server, and limited access to medical literature databases. The facilitators of accessing clinical information included convenience, easy access, and trustworthiness of information sources. Conclusion: Most primary care clinicians in our study sought clinical information at the point-of-care daily and reported increasing use of smartphones for information-seeking. Future research focusing on interventions to improve access to credible clinical information for primary care clinicians at the point-of-care is recommended. Trial registration: This study has been reviewed by NHG Domain Specific Review Board (NHG DSRB) (the central ethics committee) for ethics approval. NHG DSRB Reference Number: 2018/01355 (31/07/2019).
author2 Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
author_facet Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
Lee, Mauricette Moling
Tang, Wern Ee
Smith, Helen Elizabeth
Car, Lorainne Tudor
format Article
author Lee, Mauricette Moling
Tang, Wern Ee
Smith, Helen Elizabeth
Car, Lorainne Tudor
author_sort Lee, Mauricette Moling
title Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study
title_short Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study
title_full Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study
title_sort identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in singapore: a qualitative study
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/179604
_version_ 1814047264715309056
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1796042024-08-18T15:39:38Z Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study Lee, Mauricette Moling Tang, Wern Ee Smith, Helen Elizabeth Car, Lorainne Tudor Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) Singapore Institute of Technology Medicine, Health and Life Sciences Evidence-based medicine Information-seeking behaviour Background: The growth of medical knowledge and patient care complexity calls for improved clinician access to evidence-based resources. This study aimed to explore the primary care clinicians’ preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore. Methods: A convenience sample of ten doctors and ten nurses was recruited. We conducted semi-structured face-to-face in-depth interviews. The interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using thematic content analysis. Results: Of the 20 participants, eight doctors and ten nurses worked at government-funded polyclinics and two doctors worked in private practice. Most clinicians sought clinical information daily at the point-of-care. The most searched-for information by clinicians in practice was less common conditions. Clinicians preferred evidence-based resources such as clinical practice guidelines and UpToDate®. Clinical practice guidelines were mostly used when they were updated or based on memory. Clinicians also commonly sought answers from their peers. Furthermore, clinicians frequently use smartphones to access the Google search engine and UpToDate® app. The barriers to accessing clinical information included the lack of time, internet surfing separation of work computers, limited search functions in the organisation’s server, and limited access to medical literature databases. The facilitators of accessing clinical information included convenience, easy access, and trustworthiness of information sources. Conclusion: Most primary care clinicians in our study sought clinical information at the point-of-care daily and reported increasing use of smartphones for information-seeking. Future research focusing on interventions to improve access to credible clinical information for primary care clinicians at the point-of-care is recommended. Trial registration: This study has been reviewed by NHG Domain Specific Review Board (NHG DSRB) (the central ethics committee) for ethics approval. NHG DSRB Reference Number: 2018/01355 (31/07/2019). Nanyang Technological University Published version This study is funded by Seedcorn Grant Centre for Primary Health Care Research and Innovation, a joint Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, and the National Healthcare Group Polyclinics Initiative. 2024-08-13T01:28:06Z 2024-08-13T01:28:06Z 2024 Journal Article Lee, M. M., Tang, W. E., Smith, H. E. & Car, L. T. (2024). Identifying primary care clinicians' preferences for, barriers to, and facilitators of information-seeking in clinical practice in Singapore: a qualitative study. BMC Primary Care, 25(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-024-02429-x 2731-4553 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/179604 10.1186/s12875-024-02429-x 25 2-s2.0-85193636652 1 25 en BMC Primary Care © The Author(s) 2024. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. application/pdf