Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 9, 2020
Date Accepted: Feb 25, 2021
Healthcare professionals’ internet-specific epistemic beliefs in medicine and intention to use online evidence-based medical databases: a cross-sectional survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been regarded as a prerequisite for healthcare quality. The increase in healthcare providers’ adoption of online medical information and the lack of awareness of alternative access to online evidence-based resources suggest an investigation on their information searching behaviors through the online evidence-based medical databases.
Objective:
he main purposes of this study were to (1) modify and validate the internet-specific epistemic beliefs in medicine (ISEBM) questionnaire and (2) explore the associations between healthcare professionals’ demographics, ISEBM and intention to use online evidence-based medical databases for clinical practice.
Methods:
The healthcare professionals in a university-affiliated teaching hospital were surveyed with the ISEBM questionnaire. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to analyze the validity of the ISEBM questionnaire. Furthermore, the Structural equation modeling (SEM) with structural relationship analysis was implemented to examine the possible linkages between health professionals’ demographics, internet-specific epistemic beliefs in medicine and intention to utilize the online evidence-based medical databases for clinical practice.
Results:
A total of 277 healthcare professionals with clinical working experience were surveyed. The results of CFA indicated all items had significant loadings ranging from 0.69 to 0.89 with satisfactory composite reliability (CR) values ranging from 0.70 to 0.89. The results of SEM structural relationship analysis revealed that source of internet-based medical knowledge (P<.05) and justification for internet-based knowing in medicine (P<.05) were correlated with intention to use EBM databases. However, certainty and simplicity of internet-based medical knowledge were not. In addition, the gender (P<.05), years of working experience (P<.05), and academic degree (P<.01) were associated with intention to use online evidence-based medical databases for clinical practice.
Conclusions:
Advancing healthcare professionals’ internet-specific epistemic beliefs in medicine regarding source and justification may encourage them to retrieve valid medical information through EBM databases. Moreover, giving concern and support for specific healthcare professionals (i.e., female, senior, without graduate academic degree) may promote their intention to use certain databases for clinical practice.
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