Summary points
What was already known on the topic
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GPs’ face a wide range of clinical situations during their practice. Nevertheless, despite the use of online information sources, some clinical questions remain unanswered.
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Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a combination of individual clinical expertise and best available external evidence alongside patient’s values and expectations [1]. Currently, EBM is increasingly encouraged in physicians’ practice, and decision-making, requiring evidence based on valid research.
General practitioners (GPs) face a wide range of patients and clinical situations during their practice. This generates a large number of questions on patient management, varying between 0.10 and 1.85
We conducted a qualitative study. Data were collected through 5 focus groups (FG) interviews. We recruited residents in general medicine and GPs to join the focus groups. Dynamic interaction among the participants motivated our choice of data collection technique [9]. Data were analyzed using a qualitative descriptive approach.
Five FGs were conducted between October 2013 and January 2014. Purposive sampling involved recruiting residents with different levels of clinical experience in general
We recruited 35 participants. Fifteen were residents and 20 were GPs. Mean age was 45 years and 17 were male. The characteristics of the participants and practices are summarized in Table 1.
Firstly, a variety of research topics was described. Secondly, the reasons for participants using certain websites when seeking data were identified. Finally their querying habits were described.
Research topics covered all general medicine core competencies. Many queries concerned the most frequent health
Participants described a wide range of research topics, covering all general medicine core competencies, and especially patient-oriented topics. They used a limited list of websites. Participants were not confident about their ability to assess the quality of the information they found. Their assessment of data quality was based on intuition, and they mainly sought concordance with their existing knowledge. The way of presenting the data was considered very important. Participants were looking
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
MS, AM, and SJD had the initial idea of the study. MS, QF, and AM conceived the topic guide. MS, QF, and AM collected the data and performed analysis. MS drafted the manuscript. NG, GK, AM and SJD made substantial enhancement to it. All the authors approved the final manuscript.
Supporting data are available in an open access repository (LabArchives). They include all the transcribed verbatim, in French. Data are available at the following URL: https://mynotebook.labarchives.com/share/Cismef%2520/MjAuOHw2NDQ3MS8xNi9UcmVlTm9kZS8yMTU1NzkwODQ4fDUyLjg=. Summary points What was already known on the topic GPs’ face a wide range of clinical situations during their practice. Nevertheless, despite the use of online information sources, some clinical questions remain unanswered.
The authors would like to thank all the residents and GPs who took part at this study. The authors are grateful to Nikki Sabourin-Gibbs, Rouen University Hospital, for reviewing the manuscript in English.
Relevance [9,63], credibility [3,33,63,70], reliability [9,59], accessibility [59,63], and usability [59,63,70] can have significant effects on the selection of the sources by physicians. In addition, physicians more commonly use the familiar sources which they have frequently used [9,50]. When clinical information need arises, the physician seeks information in various ways in order to meet the requirements.