CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Information has been used to denote factual data or advice or opinion, a physical object, such as a book or journal, or the channel through which a message is conveyed, for example, oral or written communication (Ucak & Kurbanoglu, 1998). Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation (Wikipedia, 2009).

Information seeking involves the search, retrieval, recognition, and application of meaningful content. This search may be explicit or implicit, the retrieval may be the result of specific strategies or serendipity; the resulting information may be embraced or rejected; the entire experience may be carried through to a logical conclusion or aborted in midstream, and there may be a million other potential results (Kingrey, 2002).

Information seeking has been viewed by Pendleton & Chatman (1998) as cited by Kingrey (2002), as a cognitive exercise, social and cultural exchange, discrete strategies when confronting uncertainty, and as a basic condition of humanity in which all individuals exist. In fact, they were of the view that information behaviour may be more appropriate term, rather than information seeking, to best describe the multifaceted relationship of information in the lives of human beings, a relationship that can include both active searching through formal information channels and a variety of other attitudes and actions, including scepticism and ambivalence.

According to Heyden (2007) the term information seeking behaviour has been used in the research literature about scientists and researchers since the 1950’s. He went further to state that the current emphasis on user needs has prompted librarians to investigate the concept of information seeking behaviour, drawing upon models from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and communication theory.

Understanding the process of information can help to answer questions such as: What should the library and information skills curriculum encompass? What the appropriate teaching methods are? And what is the relationship of the library and information skills curriculum to the academic curriculum? (Heyden, 2007). Examining the strategies, processes, successes and failures that people experience when searching for information, can evolve into a library and information skills curriculum which guides them towards in formation literacy.

Whether viewed procedurally as a discrete series of tusks, or holistically as one vein in the body of existence, information seeking defies efforts to bend it to a model or scheme for the purpose of explication However, one basic, if clumsy, means of describing the phenomenon exists in noting changes in an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and actions during a single problem solving experience (Kingrey, 2002).

With the exponential growth of medical resources available online and other sources, health sciences libraries and other sources of information arc better able to reach nurses at the point of care. With resources now available on the inpatient units, librarians have the opportunity to focus on the information needs of practicing nurses, who represent a large segment of the clinical patron base. As a greater emphasis is placed on evidence-based practice, it is important to remember that nurses are integral to the delivery of health care and directly accountable for their practice (Wozar & Worona, 2003). In primary care, each practitioner encounters more than 500 clinical topics in any year, so the information need is much broader than that of other specialties, which may in turn lead to specific problems for these clinicians and other health care personnel like nurses searching many resources for answer (Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 2007).

Nurses need a wide variety of health information resources to meet their health care needs. Due to time constraints, many of them prefer to obtain information from resources that are convenient, easy to use, and reliable. Professional, colleagues and other health care providers, especially physicians, are favourite resources for nursing information print materials are another group or preferred sources of information, including nursing textbooks and journals (Dee & Stanley, 2005).

Most nurses work in hospitals, and the majority of hospital employees are nurses. They are responsible not only for following physicians’ orders and performing routine duties, but also for maintaining a constant surveillance of their patients, especially in a critical care unit. Nurses also gather and transmit information from the patient’s family to other health care providers and sometimes even between the patient and patient’s family. Hospital nurses are responsible for coordinating all care of the patients in their charge (McKnight, 2006).

Cogdill (2003) carried out a research on information related behaviour of nurse practitioners (NPs) and found that nurse practitioners most frequently needed information related to drug therapy and diagnosis. The result further revealed that the information resources nurse practitioners used most frequently were consultations with colleagues, drug reference manuals, textbooks and protocol manuals.

Dee & Stanley (2005) conducted a research to provide new insights on clinical nurses and nursing students’ current use of health resources. Their results revealed that nursing students and clinical nurses were most likely to rely on colleagues and books for medical information, while other resources they frequently cited included personal digital assistants, electronic journals and books and drug representatives.

As nurses follow and carry out physician orders, performing routine duties, maintaining constant surveillance of their patients, especially in a critical care unit, gather and transmit information from the patient’s family to other health care providers, there is the need to study their information seeking behaviour, which can help them to carryout the aforementioned duties. In a nutshell, this study was intended to investigate the information seeking behaviour of nurses in central hospitals in Delta State of Nigeria.

1.2  Statement of the Problem

Nurses are key elements in the delivery of health care services to the general public, in that they assist doctors in performing routine medical duties in the hospitals. In spite of the fact that we are in the era of information explosion, nurses seem to find it difficult to meet their information needs. This may be due partly to the fact that nurses do not use most of the information resources available to them. Most of the information nurses use when seeing patients is obtained from their memory and unfortunately, some are out of date or wrong (Ajayi, 2005).

It is assumed that nurses in Delta State Central Hospitals are experiencing problems in accessing information resources coupled with lack of knowledge and awareness of the resources. This is capable of hampering qualitative service delivery to the general public, thereby endangering the lives of the people.

Therefore, this research was carried out to investigate the information seeking behaviour of nurses in Delta State of Nigeria. It explored the areas the nurses need information, how frequent they use information resources to meet their needs, how frequent they use information from various channel/access points, ways they acquire their information search and use knowledge/skills, level of their information search skills and problems they experience while seeking for information.

1.3  Research Questions

The following questions were answered in this study:

1. In which areas do the nurses in the central hospitals in Delta State need information?
2. How frequent do the nurses use information resources to meet their needs?
3. How frequent do they use information from various channel/access points?
4. In what ways did they acquire their information search and use knowledge/skills?
5. What is the level of their information search skills?
6. What are the problems the nurses experience while seeking information?

1.4  Purpose of the Study

This study is intended to find out the information seeking behaviour of nurses in central hospitals in Delta State. Specifically the purpose of the study is to:

1. Find out the areas the nurses in central hospitals in Delta State need information.
2. Examine how frequent the nurses use information resources.
3. Find out how frequent they use different information channels/access points
4. Find out the ways they acquired their information search and use knowledge/skills.
5. Find out their levels of their information search skills,
6. Find out the problems the nurses experience when seeking in form at ion.

1.5  Significance of the Study

The study of the information seeking behaviour of nurses in Delta State is significance in many ways. Essentially it will generate useful data on how nurses in Delta State of Nigeria seek information, the type of information they seek, and how frequent they seek information.

The findings of the study will enable nurses to have insight into the information channels/access points they need to consult when seeking information. It will also enable librarians to know the likely sources of information for nurses, so that they could acquire and process them for the benefit of nurses. The study will benefit hospital management board as it will afford the board to know the modem trend in nursing and the areas nurses are likely to seek for information.

On the whole, this study will contribute to the existing literature in the area of information behaviour of nurses.

1.6  Scope and Delimitation of the Study

The focus of this study is on the information seeking behaviour of nurses in Delta State. The study covered nurses in central hospital in Warn, Ughelli, and Agbor. It explored the demographic information of the nurses, areas they need information, the way they use information resources to meet their needs, how frequent they access/use information from the various channels/access points, ways they acquire their information search and use knowledge/skills, and the problems they experience when seeking information.

1.7  Operational Definition of Terms

The following terms are defined according to how they are used in the study:

Behaviour: The actions or reactions and attitude of persons exhibited in a certain way under specified circumstances. Information: It is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the receiver.

Information Seeking Behaviour: The attitude demonstrated in a search for ideas that leads to gaining of knowledge.

Nurse: A professional health care provider who assist doctors in the delivery of health care services to patients.