Background: In Taiwan, physicians at regional hospitals deal with broader
medical problems in clinical services. To obtain maximum resources
available, accessing medical information or databases via the internet has
become a critical skill for improving healthcare quality. Objectives: To
identify medical information searching patterns, behavior and characteristics
of physicians in using online databases. Methods: A structured
questionnaire survey was conducted at 61 regional hospitals in 2007. We
collected 591 returns from physicians. With invalid answers excluded, 457
returns were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression model was used to
determine the subjects’ characteristics associated with the preferences of
online databases. Results: More than 70% of physicians reported using
portal websites, online databases, and electronic journals for searching
medical information. However, for the textbooks, they used printed
publications more than electronic ones (66.15% vs. 46.24%). More than
90% of the hospitals provided original article online databases, such as
MEDLINE, PubMed and ProQuest. Up to 95% of the physicians utilized
these databases during the past six months. Only 51.20% used The
Cochrane Library. Physicians under 49 years tended to use online
databases more than their older colleagues (p < 0.05). Physicians with
faculty positions used online databases more frequently (OR = 2.51,
p < 0.05). Physicians with knowledge of The Cochrane Library being
available in their hospital showed a higher tendency in online database
utilization than others (po0.05). Physicians who used MEDLINE
(OR = 4.17, p < 0.05) or PubMed (OR = 3.86, p < 0.05) more than nine
times per month during the past six months also used other online
databases more. Conclusions: This survey illustrates the informationsearching
behavior amongst physicians at regional hospitals in Taiwan, and
their preferences of online databases. The data shows that almost all
physicians had access to the original article via online databases. Faculty
position and younger age were more significant in frequent use. However,
practice experience, administrative position, gender, education and
professional specialty carried no significant difference. Physicians who
knew The Cochrane Library or were frequent user of MEDLINE/PubMed
had higher usage of online database.