title: Improving on-line skills and knowledge. A randomized trial of teaching rural physicians to use on-line medical information.
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.
  
  
  METHODS
  Physicians were randomly assigned to an educational intervention or control group. Self-administered questionnaires were completed before and 3 months after the intervention.
  
  
  METHODS
  Rural practices in southwestern Ontario.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eighty rural (defined as a population of 15000 or less) physicians in southwestern Ontario, with a computer with Internet access.
  
  
  METHODS
  Individualized 3-hour training session on using the World Wide Web to research patient-related questions.
  
  
  METHODS
  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).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Rural physicians' comfort and competence in using computers to address patient problems can be improved by an individualized 3-hour training session.
authors.affiliation: Office of Professional and Educational Development, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London. jonathan.kronick@med.uwo.ca
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kronick
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Blake
authors.forename: Eeva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Munoz
authors.forename: Lila
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Heilbrunn
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dunikowski
authors.forename: William Kenneth
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Milne
mesh_terms: D003200:Computer User Training; D005194:Family Practice / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D020407:Internet; D009864:Ontario; D010865:Pilot Projects; D019035:Rural Health Services; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric