Health Information Resources Accessibility as Predictors for Clinical Decision Making among Medical Doctors in Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Abstract

The study evaluates health information resources as predictors for clinical decision- making among medical doctors in Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Ile-Ife. A survey research design was adopted by the study and random sampling technique was used to select 265 medical doctors from a population of 822. Primary data were obtained on socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents, level of accessibility, frequency and various core skills of health information resources using a structured questionnaire and focus group discussion (FGD). Data were analyzed using frequency counts, percentage and mean. Results revealed that 59.8% of the respondents were male while 51.1% were female. Findings, however, showed that pattern recognition from experience ( &#x0304 = 3.32), critical thinking without emotion (&#x0304 = 3.16), hypothesis updating (&#x0304 = 3.607) and perception based confidence (&#x0304 = 2.97) were the core skills used by the medical doctors in clinical decision making. The focus group discussion emphasized that medical doctors should possess critical thinking without emotions and good time pressure balance in order to make accurate clinical decisions. The study concludes that medical doctors have quality access to health information resources to make clinical decisions. The study, therefore recommended regular trainings of medical personnel on health information resources to ensure accurate and sound decision making in order to enhance optimal performance.

Keywords Information sharing, Job satisfaction, Librarians, Private Universities