Internet Use Among Physicians, Nurses, and Their Patients

Patients’ characteristics and rate of Internet use to obtain cancer information

“…Regular Internet use has been previously reported to be higher among doctors and nurses than their patients. 5 The present findings show that healthcare providers also use Internet more frequently when hit by disease, regardless of their age and education. This confirms that familiarity with medical websites and terminology greatly facilitates the use of this information source.…”

Use of the internet and of the NHS direct telephone helpline for medical information by a cognitive function clinic population

“…In this CFC:WCNN population, 52% of patients, their families and carers, had access to the internet and 27% had used it. These figures are intermediate between those reported from North American specialist medical clinics (O'Connor and Johanson, 2000;Jadad et al, 2001;Taylor et al, 2001) and a UK general neurology clinic (Larner, 2002a; see Table 1). Since age influences internet use, it should be noted that CFC:WCNN is a specialist neurological service, focusing primarily on assessment and diagnosis of cognitive disorders rather than long-term follow-up, with a bias towards younger patients, since older individuals are seen by local old age psychiatry and geriatric services.…”

The Internet and access to evidence: how are nurses positioned?

“…Compared with nurses, physicians were far more likely to use computer technologies at work, especially to seek out practice information. A recent comparison of Internet use among physicians, nurses and patients found similar results, although the gap between groups was not as large (Jadad et al 2001). There are several plausible explanations for this discrepancy.…”