Usage of the Internet pharmacology resources among European pharmacologists: a preliminary investigation

The Internet is becoming an ever more important source of information in pharmacology and medicine. Little is known, however, about which Internet pharmacology resources are actually used by the pharmacologists - and to what extent - and how they estimate the Internet information quality and evaluation. This pilot study used an anonymous questionnaire, distributed among 250 mostly European (220/250) pharmacologists from 30 European countries attending The 2nd European Congress of Pharmacology, held in Budapest, Hungary, in 1999. According to study results, 93% of all participants use the Internet pharmacology resources: 56%, 35% and 9% of them on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, respectively. Among 56 pharmacological/medical free online databases offered, the general scientific databases were found to greatly prevail (Pub Med 60%, Evaluated MEDLINE 37%, Internet Grateful Med 29%, etc.), while drug monographs or toxicological databases were less used [e.g. ECDIN, RxList, National Toxicology Programme (NTP) < 10%]. Some 80% of the participants estimated the quality of the pharmacological information on the Internet as good or very good, while 20% thought the quality should be improved. Also, 35% of participants felt the need for improvement of the Internet pharmacological information evaluation, which should be the goal of pharmacology professional.