Examining Patterns of Information Behavior Among Healthcare Professionals: A Case Study on Health Psychologists

Abstract

Psychologists are an understudied population in terms of information needs and information seeking behavior. This article provides theoretical analysis accompanied with some empirical evidence drawn from a nationwide survey of psychologists working in the Greek National Healthcare System (GNHS). The empirical study was conducted during the spring of 2011, through a specially designed questionnaire distributed to all psychologists within GNHS. Psychologists seek information for patient consultation purposes and for knowledge updating; they prefer using their personal library, internet search engines, and their colleagues as information sources, while the main obstacles they face include the lack of hospital libraries. This research identified the need to more strongly link hospital library services to health psychologists on the grounds of their information needs and behaviors.

Keywords:

• information needs
• information behavior
• health psychologists
• Greece
• survey

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to all who participated in this research including those who cooperated in the final formulation of the questionnaire.