title: Usage of the Internet pharmacology resources among European pharmacologists: a preliminary investigation.
abstract: The Internet is becoming an ever more important source of information in pharmacology and medicine. Little is known, however, about which Internet pharmacology resources are actually used by the pharmacologists - and to what extent - and how they estimate the Internet information quality and evaluation. This pilot study used an anonymous questionnaire, distributed among 250 mostly European (220/250) pharmacologists from 30 European countries attending The 2nd European Congress of Pharmacology, held in Budapest, Hungary, in 1999. According to study results, 93% of all participants use the Internet pharmacology resources: 56%, 35% and 9% of them on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, respectively. Among 56 pharmacological/medical free online databases offered, the general scientific databases were found to greatly prevail (Pub Med 60%, Evaluated MEDLINE 37%, Internet Grateful Med 29%, etc.), while drug monographs or toxicological databases were less used [e.g. ECDIN, RxList, National Toxicology Programme (NTP) < 10%]. Some 80% of the participants estimated the quality of the pharmacological information on the Internet as good or very good, while 20% thought the quality should be improved. Also, 35% of participants felt the need for improvement of the Internet pharmacological information evaluation, which should be the goal of pharmacology professional.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Salata 11, HR-10000 Zagreb, POB 916, Croatia. melitas@mef.hr
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Salković-Petrisić
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mrzljak
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Lacković
mesh_terms: D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008491:Medical Informatics Applications; D010600:Pharmacology / Q000193:education / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires