Effect of Clinical Informationists’ Educational Intervention on Changing Medical Students’ Information Behavior

 Clinical specialists need to develop necessary information skills to meet their research requirements. The current study focused on the effect of educational interventions by clinical informationists on medical students’ information behavior.

 This was a semi-experimental study in which a two group  pretest–posttest design was used. The population consisted of 60 medical students (30 in the experimental and 30 in the control group at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences) who were selected through the convenience time based sequential sampling method. A researcher-made questionnaire including 19 items based on a 5-point Likert scale (very little to very high) was used to collect data which were then analyzed by SPSS using the descriptive and inferential statistics.

 The trainings offered by the clinical informationists motivated the experimental group to focus on seeking information about clinical issues. Following the intervention, the experimental group achieved significantly higher need to search for information, during and after clinical rounds, than the control group. Moreover, the use of electronic information resources and clinical databases in the experimental group was significantly higher than the control group.

Considering the importance of electronic information resources, universities of medical sciences are required to teach the use of databases, specifically as part of the medical students' curriculums and medical education programs.