[Evaluation of an internet site on evidence-based medicine]

The present study evaluated a Swiss internet provider of Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) with regard to its utilization and function for medical practitioners. The internet provider under study (www.evimed.ch) primarily provides abstracts of original articles relevant to medical practice that are presented according to the criteria of EBM and includes information about EBM itself. In March 1999 a survey was conducted to better appraise the benefits gained from the information provided from the website visitors' point of view. Around 400 persons who had entered their names in the homepage guest book were informed about the survey by e-mail. A total of 167 questionnaires were filled in online, which is equivalent to the reply rate of close to 42%. The majority of the replies (63.5%) were from private-practice physicians, 22.2% from hospital-based physicians. The average age ranged between 40 and 49 years. 67.7% of the 167 respondents had internet access at their workplace, 72.5% had private internet access. For their own practical work, 61.1% of the respondents rated the information provided by www.evimed.ch as generally useful. The clinical relevance of the studies presented in the Journal Club was rated as good by 55.7% and as very good by 26.9%. The reliability of the information provided was rated as good by 56.3% and as very good by 35.3%. The majority regarded the following homepage sites as personally important: Journal Club (55.7%), articles about EBM (46.1%), MEDLINE access (37.7%) and article citations/links (41.3%). The homepage was visited at an average frequency of 1-3 times a month. 50.3% preferred electronic media (40.1% using various internet providers, 10.2% www.evimed.ch) and 44.3% preferred print media to search for specialist information on a specific medical subject. With regard to new medical findings, 44.9% of the respondents stated that they used print media, 17.4% the www.evimed.ch homepage and 28.7% other internet sources as their primary information medium. Based on this survey, the majority of the respondents gave a positive rating of the www.evimed.ch homepage. Information about EBM and critically appraised studies were evaluated as particularly useful.