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The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners
BACKGROUND: General Practitioners (GPs) employ strategies to identify and retrieve medical evidence for clinical decision making which take workload and time constraints into account. Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT) initially developed to study animal foraging for food is used to explore the informati...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2011
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175159/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21861880 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-12-90 |
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author | Dwairy, Mai Dowell, Anthony C Stahl, Jean-Claude |
author_facet | Dwairy, Mai Dowell, Anthony C Stahl, Jean-Claude |
author_sort | Dwairy, Mai |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: General Practitioners (GPs) employ strategies to identify and retrieve medical evidence for clinical decision making which take workload and time constraints into account. Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT) initially developed to study animal foraging for food is used to explore the information searching behaviour of General Practitioners. This study is the first to apply foraging theory within this context. Study objectives were: 1. To identify the sequence and steps deployed in identifiying and retrieving evidence for clinical decision making. 2. To utilise Optimal Foraging Theory to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of General Practitioner information searching. METHODS: GPs from the Wellington region of New Zealand were asked to document in a pre-formatted logbook the steps and outcomes of an information search linked to their clinical decision making, and fill in a questionnaire about their personal, practice and information-searching backgrounds. RESULTS: A total of 115/155 eligible GPs returned a background questionnaire, and 71 completed their information search logbook. GPs spent an average of 17.7 minutes addressing their search for clinical information. Their preferred information sources were discussions with colleagues (38% of sources) and books (22%). These were the two most profitable information foraging sources (15.9 min and 9.5 min search time per answer, compared to 34.3 minutes in databases). GPs nearly always accessed another source when unsuccessful (95% after 1(st )source), and frequently when successful (43% after 2(nd )source). Use of multiple sources accounted for 41% of searches, and increased search success from 70% to 89%. CONCLUSIONS: By consulting in foraging terms the most 'profitable' sources of information (colleagues, books), rapidly switching sources when unsuccessful, and frequently double checking, GPs achieve an efficient trade-off between maximizing search success and information reliability, and minimizing searching time. As predicted by foraging theory, GPs trade time-consuming evidence-based (electronic) information sources for sources with a higher information reward per unit time searched. Evidence-based practice must accommodate these 'real world' foraging pressures, and Internet resources should evolve to deliver information as effectively as traditional methods of information gathering. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3175159 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-31751592011-09-18 The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners Dwairy, Mai Dowell, Anthony C Stahl, Jean-Claude BMC Fam Pract Research Article BACKGROUND: General Practitioners (GPs) employ strategies to identify and retrieve medical evidence for clinical decision making which take workload and time constraints into account. Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT) initially developed to study animal foraging for food is used to explore the information searching behaviour of General Practitioners. This study is the first to apply foraging theory within this context. Study objectives were: 1. To identify the sequence and steps deployed in identifiying and retrieving evidence for clinical decision making. 2. To utilise Optimal Foraging Theory to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of General Practitioner information searching. METHODS: GPs from the Wellington region of New Zealand were asked to document in a pre-formatted logbook the steps and outcomes of an information search linked to their clinical decision making, and fill in a questionnaire about their personal, practice and information-searching backgrounds. RESULTS: A total of 115/155 eligible GPs returned a background questionnaire, and 71 completed their information search logbook. GPs spent an average of 17.7 minutes addressing their search for clinical information. Their preferred information sources were discussions with colleagues (38% of sources) and books (22%). These were the two most profitable information foraging sources (15.9 min and 9.5 min search time per answer, compared to 34.3 minutes in databases). GPs nearly always accessed another source when unsuccessful (95% after 1(st )source), and frequently when successful (43% after 2(nd )source). Use of multiple sources accounted for 41% of searches, and increased search success from 70% to 89%. CONCLUSIONS: By consulting in foraging terms the most 'profitable' sources of information (colleagues, books), rapidly switching sources when unsuccessful, and frequently double checking, GPs achieve an efficient trade-off between maximizing search success and information reliability, and minimizing searching time. As predicted by foraging theory, GPs trade time-consuming evidence-based (electronic) information sources for sources with a higher information reward per unit time searched. Evidence-based practice must accommodate these 'real world' foraging pressures, and Internet resources should evolve to deliver information as effectively as traditional methods of information gathering. BioMed Central 2011-08-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3175159/ /pubmed/21861880 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-12-90 Text en Copyright ©2011 Dwairy et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Dwairy, Mai Dowell, Anthony C Stahl, Jean-Claude The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners |
title | The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners |
title_full | The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners |
title_fullStr | The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners |
title_full_unstemmed | The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners |
title_short | The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners |
title_sort | application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175159/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21861880 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-12-90 |
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