Impact of an information retrieval and management curriculum on medical student citations.
BACKGROUND
Increasingly, schools have integrated evidence-based medicine into their curricula. Most efforts focus on critical appraisal of literature rather than information retrieval and management (IRAM) skills. We implemented two versions of an IRAM curriculum (workshop alone and workshop with librarian visit) and evaluated their effectiveness.


METHODS
First-year medical students in a problem-based learning course researched six learning issues (LIs). We compared the number and completeness of LI citations of students receiving a Workshop/Librarian or a Workshop intervention with those of a control group.


RESULTS
A total of 2,415 LIs containing 6,717 citations from 429 students were scored. Among the Workshop/Librarian, Workshop, and control groups, respectively, the percentage of LIs without citations was 9.3%, 11.0%, and 14.0%, the percentage of citations with complete documentation was 64.9%, 61.0%, and 29.4%, and the frequency of citing primary articles was 24.7%, 13.2%, and 18.8% (P < .05).


CONCLUSIONS
An IRAM curriculum that includes a workshop plus librarian participation produced the best student citation habits.
Chen
Huiju C
HC
UCSF Department of Pediatrics, 500 Parnassus Avenue, MUE 406, Box 0136, San Francisco, CA 94143-0136, USA. chenhc@peds.ucsf.edu
Tan
Josephine P G
JP
O'Sullivan
Patricia
P
Boscardin
Christy
C
Li
Amy
A
Muller
Jessica
J
D003479:Curriculum; D019451:Information Management; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013337:Students, Medical