Understanding Interns' information needs in emergency departments

ABSTRACT

Objective: In teaching hospitals, the clinical encounter is an increasingly significant component of interns' curriculum and one of the clinical experiences of interns is emergency medicine. This research was conducted to provide new insights on interns' information needs in emergency departments.  Methods: This study examines the information needs of interns in the emergency departments of teaching hospitals in Iran University of Medical Sciences. Questionnaires and observations were used to collect data from seventy interns. Chi-square, two-tailed and bi-variation correlation tests were used to investigate the relationship among the data.    Results: It was observed that the most commonly asked questions related to patient specific information and fewer questions related to organizational questions such as hospital policies and procedures. The analysis revealed a statistically significant relationship (0.576, P