KNOWLEDGE AND USE FROM NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY AMONG PHYSICIANS HOSPITALS AFFILIATED TO SHAHREKORD UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES IN 2012

Abstract

The importance of learning through electronic media in the majority of the scientific communities including the medical field is not hidden from anyone and based on the increasing spread of medical achievements, the need for specialized information databases is on the rise to inform the new findings. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine knowledge and use of physicians of hospitals affiliated with Shahrekord university of Medical Sciences from the National Digital Library. It is a descriptive study was carried out on the physicians of two teaching hospitals (Kashani and Hajar hospitals) and one clinical hospital (Vali Asr of Borujen).The population of this study was 60 physicians. Data collection was carried out by a researcher-designed questionnaire. Validity of the questionnaire confirmed by several professors and experts within Librarianship field and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha Coefficient of 0/89. The data were analyzed using SPSS software 18. Knowledge and use of physicians from comprehensive electronic journals and databases is very low. There was no significant difference between the knowledge and use of hospital physicians and their academic degree and also the type of the hospital. There was a correlation between the two variables of knowledge and use of electronic databases. The physician reported that their most way of obtaining knowledge from electronic database was through librarian guidance. Due to the increasing development of e-learning and international competition in this field, it is necessary to inform and increase the awareness of the physicians about their knowledge and use of electronic bank for learning and access to updated scientific information.