Availability and Use of Health Information Resources by Doctors in Teaching Hospitals in South East Nigeria

Abstract

This is a survey of the health information resources availability and pattern of their utilization by doctors in teaching hospitals in South East Nigeria. A 25 -item structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 1, 995 medical doctors. The data collected were analysedusing Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 12.0), while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was adopted in testing the hypothesis. The results showed that health information resources are moderately available to doctors and that they use them for different purposes. The null hypothesis was rejected as there was significant difference between the mean responses of different categories of doctors on the purpose of use of health information resources. These findings implied that these doctors are being deprived of the privileges of making use of a wide and full variety of health information resources for their different information needs. It was recommended that full range of health information resources be made readily available to doctors in teaching hospitals in South East Nigeria for optimal performance.

Keywords: Information, health information, health information resources, medical doctors, teaching       hospitals, information utilization.