title: General practice trainees' information searching strategies for clinical queries encountered in daily practice.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Earlier studies have shown that clinical queries are common among doctors. Data on the information-seeking behaviour of general practice (GP) trainees are scarce though, and numbers studied are small.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this study was to determine how often and how GP trainees search for answers to clinical queries encountered in daily clinical practice.
  
  
  METHODS
  Third-year GP trainees kept logs on all patient contacts for eight consecutive practice days. Information was obtained on patient contacts (description), clinical queries (frequency, type), seeking behaviour (frequency, moment, reason not to search, resources used, duration of search) and answers (frequency, impact). Descriptive analyses were performed; frequencies and percentages were computed. We calculated the number of clinical queries per patient, the number of searches per query and the number of answers per search.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Seventy-six trainees reported 1533 clinical queries about 7300 patients presenting 7619 complaints [mean of 0.2 queries per patient, standard deviation (SD) 0.1]. For most of the queries trainees pursued an answer (mean of 0.8 per query, SD 0.2), mostly during consultation (61% of searches), and frequently retrieved answers (mean of 0.8 per search, SD 0.17) they reported to improve clinical decision making in 26%. Most common resources were colleagues or supervisors (28%), and national GP guidelines (26%). The median duration of a search was 4 minutes (interquartile range 3).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  GP trainees have one clinical query per five patients. They often attempted to find answers and reported to succeed in most of the searches, primarily by consulting supervisors or colleagues and national GP guidelines.
authors.affiliation: Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. m.f.kortekaas@umcutrecht.nl.
authors.forename: Marlous F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Kortekaas
authors.affiliation: Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Marie-Louise E L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Bartelink
authors.affiliation: Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Boelman
authors.affiliation: Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Arno W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Hoes
authors.affiliation: Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Centre Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Niek J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: de Wit
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005260:Female; D058006:General Practice / Q000193:education* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008297:Male; D008611:Mentors; D009426:Netherlands; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Family practice; general practice; information-seeking behaviour; primary health care; trainee.