Although many computer information services have been developed, they are not yet extensively used or accepted by health care practitioners. Since drug information has been identified as an area of need by clinicians, the potential role of the pharmacist as a drug therapy expert should not be overlooked. Medicine and pharmacy have both called for greater collaboration between the disciplines, which should lead to enhanced patient care, physician effectiveness, and professional satisfaction for the pharmacist. Most of the advances in patient oriented or clinical pharmacy practice have involved the hospital setting. Surveys have noted that community pharmacies often have inadequate reference libraries. Since community pharmacists have generally pursued answers to questions only in sources readily available to them, an inadequate reference library could lead to their underutilization as drug information resources. Community pharmacies frequently utilize computers for prescription related functions, but not generally for online information access. The attitudes of pharmacists and pharmacy students toward computer information databases have also not been explored. Therefore, the specific aims of this study are: 1) to evaluate and compare the utility of GRATEFUL MED and BRS Colleague as they relate to the provision of drug information to community pharmacists, clinical pharmacists, and pharmacy students; and 2) to describe the attitudes of the users with regard to computer access, amount of time it takes to find desired information, work compatibility, search strategy, and the use of computers in general. The needs and abilities of pharmacists in the area of online information retrieval can be clarified,strengths and limitations of the services identified, and improvements proposed. The entire study will extend over three years. The first 3 month study period will describe the drug information questions received and sources used by the subjects (precomputer). During the next 2 months, either GRATEFUL MED or BRS will then be installed in each setting and the subjects trained in its use, with preliminary use and attitude data collected. Over the next 12 months, computer use will be monitored, including the success rate and types of searching errors made, and frequent measures of utility and attitude will be collected. The process will then be repeated in each setting using the second computer service. Both use and attitude data will be analyzed by descriptive and statistical methods within and between subjects and settings.
| Shumway, J M; Jacknowitz, A I; Abate, M A (1996) Attitudes of community pharmacists, university-based pharmacists, and students toward on-line information resources. Methods Inf Med 35:142-7 |
