Library tools at the nurses' station: exploring information-seeking behaviors and needs of nurses in a war veterans nursing home

OBJECTIVES: Analyze the information-seeking practices and identify the information and education needs of nurses in a war veterans nursing home. Develop an online toolkit for use at the nurses' stations to meet nurses' health information needs. METHODS: Investigators employed mixed methods to determine the health information needs of the participating nurses at the skilled nursing facility using an online questionnaire and in-person observations. Resulting data was compared to determine how nurses' self-reported data corresponded with investigator observations. RESULTS: Twenty-seven out of a total of thirty-five nurses responded to the online questionnaire. The study principal investigator also observed a total of twelve nurses working across all shifts. The online questionnaire asked nurses to identify when they need health information for an acute clinical scenario. Nurses self-reported feeling most confident in assessing falls and pain, followed by medication adherence and skin integrity. Issues most frequently encountered during observation of nurses were falls, interventions surrounding cognitive ability or dementia, and use of antibiotics. Nurses reported and were observed to consult colleagues most frequently, followed by drug handbooks and relying on nursing experience. CONCLUSION: Nurses in skilled nursing facilities will benefit from ready online access to current drug handbooks as well as information resources surrounding commonly encountered clinical issues and stated needs. An outcome of this project is an online toolkit site using a LibGuide created specifically for this purpose. Researchers purchased laptop computers that were installed at each of the nurses' stations to provide ready access to the toolkit site.