Nurses attitudes towards the informed patient.
The widespread use of the Internet for health information has resulted in knowledgeable clients referred to as "informed patients". Many patients bring the information they downloaded from the Internet to the appointments with the health care workers.


OBJECTIVE
The present study examined the prevalence of nurses' encounters and attitudes to these patients and factors that might influence attitudes.


METHODS
A cross-sectional study of a convenience sample of 110 nurses in Israel was conducted. The main variables measured were: attitudes, professional self-esteem, and two indices of Internet use.


RESULTS
The results show that most nurses held positive attitudes towards patients presenting Internet Medical Information. Nurses with prior experience had more positive attitudes than nurses with no such experience. Professional self-esteem and Internet use were also positively correlated to positive attitudes to these patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Since patients search the Internet for medical information, there is a need to prepare and train nurses to be Internet literate in order to be prepared for encounters with such patients.
Barnoy
Sivia
S
Nursing Department, School of Health Professions, Tel Aviv University, Israel. sivia@post.tau.ac.il
Volfin-Pruss
Diana
D
Ehrenfeld
Malka
M
Kushnir
Talma
T
D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D020407:Internet; D007557:Israel; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010358:Patient Participation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult