Hospital nurses’ use of knowledge-based information resources

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the information-seeking practices of nurses before and after access to a library’s electronic collection of information resources. This is a pre/post intervention study of nurses at a rural community hospital. The hospital contracted with an academic health sciences library for access to a collection of online knowledge-based resources. Self-report surveys were used to obtain information about nurses’ computer use and how they locate and access information to answer questions related to their patient care activities. In 2001, self-report surveys were sent to the hospital’s 573 nurses during implementation of access to online resources with a post-implementation survey sent 1 year later. At the initiation of access to the library’s electronic resources, nurses turned to colleagues and print textbooks or journals to satisfy their information needs. After 1 year of access, 20% of the nurses had begun to use the library’s electronic resources. The study outcome suggests ready access to knowledge-based electronic information resources can lead to changes in behavior among some nurses.