Evidence Summary
A User Survey Finds That a Hospital Library Literature Search Service
Has a Direct Impact on Patient Care
A Review of:
Farrell, A., Mason, J. (2014). Evaluating the Impact of Literature
Searching Services on Patient Care Through the Use of a Quick-Assessment Tool. Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries
Association, 35(3),116-123. doi: 10.5596/c14-030
Reviewed by:
Elizabeth Stovold
Information Specialist, Cochrane Airways Group
St George’s, University of London
Tooting, London, United Kingdom
Email: [email protected]
Received: 21 May 2015 Accepted: 27 Jul. 2015
2015 Stovold.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons‐Attribution‐Noncommercial‐Share Alike License 4.0
International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly attributed, not used for commercial
purposes, and, if transformed, the resulting work is redistributed under the same
or similar license to this one.
Abstract
Objective – To assess the impact of a library
provided literature search service on patient care.
Design – Multiple choice
questionnaire survey.
Setting – Hospital library.
Subjects – 54 library users who had
requested a literature search and indicated the primary purpose of their
request was patient care.
Methods – A multiple choice
questionnaire survey was designed, building on previously published library
impact surveys and best practice guidelines, with input from staff in the local
research department. The survey was reviewed by library staff, researchers and
prospective respondents and piloted. The survey was sent out with the answers
to literature search requests and a small incentive was offered to those who
completed the survey. The survey was followed up with reminders.
Main results – The response rate was
57.5% (n=54/94). The most common staff groups requesting literature searches
were physicians (33.3%), nurses (22.2%), therapists (16.7%), pharmacists
(11.1%) and residents (7.4%). The majority stated that their questions had been
answered (77.8%), while 18.5% indicated their questions had been partially
answered, for reasons such as the answer leading to more questions, or parts of
the question had not been addressed. Two (3.7%) of the respondents’ questions
were not answered, either because no answer existed, or because the question
didn’t contain enough detail.
Of those who replied that their question had been
answered, 64.3% judged the information to have had an immediate impact on
patient treatment or management. Other uses of the information included
refreshing memory, avoiding an adverse event, diagnosing a patient, or
preventing a referral. The percentage of respondents judging there to be no
immediate impact on patient care was 16.7%. The impact on diagnosis and
treatment was further investigated in those who had said there had been an
immediate impact, with 22.2% saying the information determined their choice of drug, 29.6% saying the information confirmed their choice of drug, while
18.5% stated the information changed
their choice of drug. All respondents replied that they intended to use this
information in the future, regardless of whether the information had an
immediate impact, or if their question had been answered.
Conclusion – The authors concluded
that the survey results show hospital libraries can have an impact on patient
care through a literature searching service. They also found that the library
was answering its literature service users’ questions.
Commentary
The article was assessed with the CRiSTAL checklist
for appraising a user study (Booth & Brice, 2003). The strengths of this
study lie in its rationale, design, and reproducibility. There is a tradition
of measuring the value of health library services (Marshall, 2007) and the
motivation for this study was recognition that the hospital library was not
currently measuring its impact on patient care. The authors recognise that
issues surrounding the measurement of impact aren’t unique to their
institution, raising a wider need for the development of a common tool.
The study targeted a clearly focussed group of users
of a literature search service with the defined objective of measuring the
impact of this service on patient care. The authors built on previous work in
survey design and best practice to develop a tool which they piloted and
critically reviewed. Based on the number of literature search requests in the
previous year, they estimated that 50 responses were necessary for a
representative sample, and this was achieved. The authors provide the full
questionnaire in the article, together with a web link to the survey, to enable
other institutions to reproduce and adapt the tool. The authors acknowledge
that while they found that the service provided by their library had a direct
impact on patient care, this may not be generalizable to other populations.
The results raise issues not discussed in the article.
Reasons for non-response were not considered, or the possibility that these
reasons may be skewing the results. Each respondent’s profession was analysed,
but it is not clear whether the proportion of individual professions is
representative of the whole library user base, or if some staff groups were
under-represented. There wasn’t a control group, so we do not know how the
impact of a library-provided literature search compares with a self-conducted
literature search, for example. Library users were only surveyed if they
indicated that patient care was the reason for their inquiry, so it is not
possible to say anything about the value of the service overall.
The study has provided a validated tool for other
health libraries to measure their own impact on patient care, and the authors
encourage others to do so. The tool could be adapted to assess other outcomes,
such as impact on teaching, learning, and policy decisions by the hospital, and
other services not limited to health libraries, such as information skills
training. By demonstrating their impact and value, libraries will be in a
stronger position to justify funding to provide these services.
Future research opportunities include work to further
validate the tool, and to answer some of the unknowns, such as how a library
literature search service compares with a self-conducted literature search.
References
Booth, A., & Brice, A. (2003). Clear-cut?: Facilitating health
librarians to use information research in practice. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 20(Suppl 1), 45-52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2532.20.s1.10.x
Marshall, J.G. (2007). Measuring the value and impact of health library
and information services: past reflections, future possibilities. Health Information & Libraries Journal,
24(Suppl 1), 4-17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hir.12079