Family physicians' interests in special features of electronic publication.
OBJECTIVE
Because many of the medical journals read by family physicians now have an electronic version, the authors conducted a survey to determine the interest of family physicians in specific features of electronic journal publications.


METHODS
We surveyed 175 family physicians randomly selected from the American Academy of Family Physicians.


RESULTS
The response rate was 63%. About half of family physicians reported good to excellent computer proficiency, and about one quarter used online journals sometimes or often. Many respondents reported high interest in having links to: an electronic medical text (48% for original articles, 56% for review articles), articles' list of references (52% for original articles, 56% for review articles), and health-related Websites (48% for original and review articles).


CONCLUSIONS
Primary care-oriented journals should consider the interests of family physicians when developing and offering electronic features for their readers.
Torre
Dario M
DM
General Internal Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin/Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center, 9200 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53226, USA. dtorre@mcw.edu
Wright
Scott M
SM
Wilson
Renee F
RF
Diener-West
Marie
M
Bass
Eric B
EB
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009862:Online Systems / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012955:Societies, Medical; D014481:United States