Background: Primary care physicians (PCPs) need a wide range of clinical information (CI) resources to manage their patients. Continued access to these resources in their practice settings provides self-reliance and a better approach towards clinical decision making.
Objective: To compare the PCPs CI needs and access to CI in rural versus non-rural practice setting.
Methods: A comparative cross-sectional survey was conducted in the Government health centres of the District of Multan, Pakistan. PCPs were classified into rural and non-rural according to their practice setting using the State Office of Rural Health definition. Rural means 'more than 10 miles from a population centre of 30 000 or more'.
Results: The CI needs of rural and non-rural PCPs were the same, but rural PCPs had significantly less access to nearly all CI resources when compared to non-rural PCPs. Age was a major determining factor of perceived information needs for continuing medical education but not for accessing CI.
Discussion: Primary care physicians in rural settings face innumerable difficulties in accessing the required CI due to non-existence of libraries and poor information infrastructure.
Conclusion: Despite no difference in information needs, rural PCPs have significantly less access to CI resources. The study suggests ways to address the inequality in provision of CI resources.
Keywords: Asia, South; Information and communication technologies (ICT); access to information; doctors; information need; information services; primary health care; surveys.
© 2015 Health Libraries Group.