Clinical residents' perception of clinical librarian services in Iranian teaching hospitals

Abstract

Background. Clinical librarians have specialized search skills to search medical databases to provide clinicians with medical research information needed for evidence-based clinical decision making. However, the importance of cooperation between librarians and healthcare teams does not seem to be well-recognized by clinicians. Objectives. The present study aimed to shed light on the importance of the cooperation between medical librarians and healthcare teams by probing clinicians’ viewpoints and their familiarity with librarians’ service. Methods. The population comprised 890 clinical residents at teaching hospitals of the Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2016-2017. A questionnaire survey was carried out with 260 respondents. Results. A majority of the clinical residents did not use services provided by clinical librarians. However, some used the following services: changing treatment behavior based on evidence-based information (3.4%), obtaining evidence-based information (5.0%), accessing clinical guidelines (12.7%), and getting familiar with recent scientific discoveries (6.7%). The residents approved of the presence of librarians who have most of the professional skills necessary for cooperation. Contributions. The presence of clinical librarians with appropriate skills in the healthcare team can help resolve some problems clinical residents face while searching.