Article type
Year
Abstract
Objective: To explore the level of knowledge and utilisation of the Cochrane Collaboration by primary health care workers (PHCW) in Argentina, and their demographic characteristics and practice.
Methods: Cross sectional study. A survey by e-mail was sent to nearly 5000 PHCW included in the mailing of the Family and Preventive Medicine Division, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, an academic primary care centre. The e-mails answers were recollected by the K-Form programme and analysed with Stata 7.0.
Results: 411 PHCW were the early respondents (2 weeks) of the survey. Two thirds were males, mean age 41.7?9.9 years, 71% were physicians, 1% nurses and 28% other activities; 84% did residency programs; 41% work in public centres, 33% in private centres and 26% in both. Sixty-four percent of the respondents worked in academic centres. Only 51% of this highly selected population knows the Cochrane Collaboration and 23% knows its Argentine Centre. In the last year, 60% never used the Cochrane Collaboration, 18% used it less than monthly, 8% monthly, 2-3 times/month in 8%, and 4% weekly. Among Cochrane users, the Collaboration solved a small part of their problems in 8%, enough in 46%, very much in 42% and completely in 4%. The sources of access to Cochrane were: 3% subscription, 10% Obgyn, 4% OVID, 23% Medline, 12% libraries, 21% multiple sources and 31% other sources. We dichotomised the use in "frequent user" (15% of the population) if the use was more than monthly and the utility to Cochrane users in "highly useful" (46%) if the Cochrane solves problems more than enough. We explore the association between these variables with demographic and practice variables mentioned above. Younger age was the only variable significantly associated with frequent use (3.5 years difference, 95%CI 0.07-6.8, p=0.045), and there was a tendency (p=0.073) to a more frequent use in academic centres than in the others (18% vs. 10%).
Conclusions: Knowledge and utilisation of the Cochrane Collaboration were poor even in a highly selected population of PHCW in Argentine but the utility for users was good. Almost no users have access through a paid subscription. As this is a selected sample, the results probably overestimate users population and utilisation pattern in argentine PHCW.
Methods: Cross sectional study. A survey by e-mail was sent to nearly 5000 PHCW included in the mailing of the Family and Preventive Medicine Division, Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, an academic primary care centre. The e-mails answers were recollected by the K-Form programme and analysed with Stata 7.0.
Results: 411 PHCW were the early respondents (2 weeks) of the survey. Two thirds were males, mean age 41.7?9.9 years, 71% were physicians, 1% nurses and 28% other activities; 84% did residency programs; 41% work in public centres, 33% in private centres and 26% in both. Sixty-four percent of the respondents worked in academic centres. Only 51% of this highly selected population knows the Cochrane Collaboration and 23% knows its Argentine Centre. In the last year, 60% never used the Cochrane Collaboration, 18% used it less than monthly, 8% monthly, 2-3 times/month in 8%, and 4% weekly. Among Cochrane users, the Collaboration solved a small part of their problems in 8%, enough in 46%, very much in 42% and completely in 4%. The sources of access to Cochrane were: 3% subscription, 10% Obgyn, 4% OVID, 23% Medline, 12% libraries, 21% multiple sources and 31% other sources. We dichotomised the use in "frequent user" (15% of the population) if the use was more than monthly and the utility to Cochrane users in "highly useful" (46%) if the Cochrane solves problems more than enough. We explore the association between these variables with demographic and practice variables mentioned above. Younger age was the only variable significantly associated with frequent use (3.5 years difference, 95%CI 0.07-6.8, p=0.045), and there was a tendency (p=0.073) to a more frequent use in academic centres than in the others (18% vs. 10%).
Conclusions: Knowledge and utilisation of the Cochrane Collaboration were poor even in a highly selected population of PHCW in Argentine but the utility for users was good. Almost no users have access through a paid subscription. As this is a selected sample, the results probably overestimate users population and utilisation pattern in argentine PHCW.