"Bridging the information gap" for Virginia public health nurses

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Nursing Information Science
• Public Health Information Access

Background:

• Public health nurses require access to up-to-date health science information.
• The National Library of Medicine (NLM) offers extensive databases for health information retrieval.
• Previous studies indicate physicians often rely on local resources for information seeking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance public health nurses' knowledge and utilization of NLM health science information resources.
• To assess the impact of Grateful Med software training on information-seeking behaviors.
• To identify barriers to the adoption of electronic health information resources by public health nurses.

Main Methods:

• A collaborative project involving a university library, nursing school, and health department.
• Training sixty public health nurses on accessing NLM databases using Grateful Med software.
• Post-training evaluation of resource utilization and information-seeking practices.

Main Results:

• Trained public health nurses demonstrated limited subsequent use of NLM databases.
• Nurses continued to rely on traditional information sources like colleagues and personal collections.
• Access to training and resources did not significantly alter established information-seeking behaviors.

Conclusions:

• Training alone may be insufficient to change established information-seeking habits of public health nurses.
• Understanding and addressing barriers to electronic resource utilization is crucial for improving information access.
• Future interventions should consider integrating electronic resource use into daily workflows and professional networks.