Primary health‐care nurses and Internet health information‐seeking: Access, barriers and quality checks

Abstract

Online information is a critical resource for evidence-based practice and patient education. This study aimed to establish New Zealand nurses' access and evaluation of online health information in the primary care context using a postal questionnaire survey; there were 630 respondents from a random sample of 931 nurses. The majority of respondents were satisfied with work access to online information (84.5%, n = 501) and searched for online information at least several times a week (57.5%, n = 343). The major barrier to online information seeking was insufficient time, but 68 respondents had no work online information access. The level of nursing qualification was significantly correlated with computer confidence and information quality checking. A range of information evaluation approaches was used. Most nurses in study accessed and evaluated Internet information in contrast to the findings of earlier studies, but there were barriers preventing universal integration into practice.

Barriers to using electronic evidence based literature in nursing practice: a systematised review

“…Distrusting the quality of information and not knowing how to critically appraise the retrieved research was mentioned by 24% ( n = 5) of the reviewed studies as a barrier in using EBP electronic literature . In his study, Shaheen et al .…”

“…Nurses’ unwillingness to use electronic EBP literature was identified in 24% ( n = 5) of reviewed studies as a barrier to access and use online information . In their paper, Dalheim et al .…”

“…In his study, Shaheen et al . investigated that 47% of the nurses have difficulty in assessing the quality of reports and research papers leading them to being less willing to use electronic EBP literature resulted in seeking for other trusted sources of information such as asking a colleague …”

“…Different studies revealed different barriers proposing the problem as a multi‐faceted issue. The most cited barrier that almost 86% of the reviewed studies have addressed included lack of enough time to perform a search …”

“…One study noted that although satisfied with work access to bibliographic databases, the majority of New Zealand nurses suffer from insufficient time at work and time barrier was a deterrent factor to search for online evidence based material . Similarly, another study in Nigeria pointed out that majority of nurses were computer literate but not having enough time prevents them to search while at work .…”