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11-Nov-2026
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Arch Hellen Med, 44(1), January-February 2027, 39-47 ORIGINAL PAPER Information-seeking behavior and training needs of medical and nursing staff in a public general hospital E. Gouli,1 P. Theodorou,2,3 A. Flokou,2,3 P. Kostagiolas3 |
OBJECTIVE To determine the level of information seeking behavior and the training needs for continuing professional education of the medical and nursing staff in a public general hospital, as well as the differentiation of these characteristics based on the demographic and professional characteristics of the participants.
METHOD The survey was carried out from December 2022 to March 2023, with a sample of 108/160 doctors and nurses of all grades (response rate 67.5%) of the staff of a public general hospital in Thessaloniki. The data was collected using the Participation Reasons Scale, a questionnaire for recording information seeking behavior based on questionnaires used in surveys to investigate the information-seeking behavior of Greek health professionals and the electronic Health Literacy Scale (eHEALS) to record e-Health information literacy. Data analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS), version 21.0.
RESULTS During the statistical analysis of the results, it emerged that the medical and nursing staff had a moderate to high e-Health information literacy which is positively related to higher educational level and the medical profession. Motivations such as improving professional skills and enhancing patient care, as well as learning and interacting with colleagues, emerged as the most important for participation in continuing vocational training programs, which were positively correlated with a high educational level. At the same time, updating knowledge, lifelong learning and medical guidelines/protocols were the most important reasons that lead to the search for information about health services, while electronic scientific journals, conferences, the internet and medical and nursing staff were the most important sources of information search for health services. Finally, lack of time and the cost of subscriptions to medical journals or databases were the most important barriers to information seeking.
CONCLUSIONS Strengthening information-seeking behavior and incentives to participate in continuing training programs will enhance the updating and management of the knowledge of medical and nursing staff, with a positive impact on the health of citizens, contributing to the provision of higher quality health services.
Key words: e-Health information literacy, Information-seeking behavior, Medical and nursing staff, Training needs.
