Research Abstract

Research Abstract

Title: Information Needs of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants: Implications for Health Science Librarians

Purpose: Describe the information needs of primary care nurse practitioners and physician assistants; compare to the information needs of physicians.
Setting/subjects: Ambulatory primary care practices in rural and nonrural settings. Nurse practitioners (42), physician assistants (22), and physicians (39).

Methodology: Observational study using paired, semi-structured interviews.

Results: During 103 half-day inteviews, clinicians caring for 842 patients articulated 645 questions. Of these, they pursued 275, found answers to 215, and reported an impact on the patient for 193. Over 40% of questions were pursued immediat ely. Most answers came from a single source (164 questions). There were no significant differences among clinician types for these variables. Answers to most questions came from human sources (109) or readily available printed matter (83). Organizational and institutional sources were consulted for 25 questions, more often by NPs and PAs. Libraries and digital media were rarely consulted (3 and 7 questions respectively), more often by MDs/DOs. Most questions concerned treatment, but NP and PA questions more often concerned multiple issues, including pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, and diagnostic testing. The type of information most often needed was medical knowledge, but NPs and PAs more often required patient data, logistic information, and information about peer practices. Most questions required only simple facts, but NPs and PAs more often requested higher-level responses, including analysis, synthesis, and judgment.

Discussion/conclusion: Primary care clinicians were quite similar in the frequency of clinical questions and in their information seeking patterns. Based on their own judgments about their questions, nurse practitioners and physician assistant s had broader medical knowledge needs, more frequent need for logistic and peer practice information, and more frequent need for higher-level responses, including analysis, synthesis, and judgment.