Information needs and information-seeking behavior of primary care physicians.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to determine the information needs of primary care physicians in Spain and to describe their information-seeking patterns.


METHODS
This observational study took place in primary care practices located in Madrid, Spain. Participants were a random stratified sample of 112 primary care physicians. Physicians' consultations were video recorded for 4 hours. Clinical questions arising during the patient visit and the sources of information used within the consultation to answer questions were identified. Physicians with unanswered questions were followed up by telephone 2 weeks later to determine whether their questions had since been answered and the sources of information used. Clinical questions were classified by topic and type of information.


RESULTS
A total of 3,511 patient consultations (mean length, 7.8 minutes) were recorded, leading to 635 clinical questions (0.18 questions per consultation). The most frequent questions were related to diagnosis (53%) and treatment (26%). The most frequent generic type of questions was "What is the cause of symptom x?" (20.5%). Physicians searched for answers to 22.8% of the questions (9.6% during consultations). The time taken and the success rate in finding an answer during a consultation and afterward were 2 minutes (100%) and 32 minutes (75%), respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Primary care physicians working in settings where consultations are of short duration have time to answer only 1 in 5 of their questions. Better methods are needed to provide answers to questions that arise in office practice in settings where average consultation time is less than 10 minutes.
Servicio Madrileño de la Salud, Madrid, Spain. agonzalez.gapm10@salud.madrid.org
Ana I
AI
González-González
Martin
M
Dawes
José
J
Sánchez-Mateos
Rosario
R
Riesgo-Fuertes
Esperanza
E
Escortell-Mayor
Teresa
T
Sanz-Cuesta
Tomás
T
Hernández-Fernández
D000328:Adult; D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D005194:Family Practice / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019370:Observation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000523:psychology*; D011216:Practice Management, Medical; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D013030:Spain; D013997:Time Factors; D019037:Urban Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D014741:Video Recording