Abstract Issue

Volume 12 Issue 4 ( October-December ) 2023

Original Articles

Perception of undergraduate first year medical students towards web-based literature retrieval
Meenal Batta, Rajeev Sharma, Shashi Kant Dhir, Sonia Garg, Naveenta Gupta

Introduction: In the medical field the electronic research is mostly confined to the postgraduate students. The incidence of literature retrieval has been scarcely reported in Indian undergraduate MBBS students. The knowledge attitude and practices towards web-based literature retrieval was studied here. Methods: This cross-sectional study was done in the undergraduate first year medical students of a government tertiary level teaching institute over a period of four years. The pre-validated questionnaire containing nine closed ended questions were distributed to the students. The answers given by the students were analyzed using the standard statistical methods. Comparison between the pre and post covid-19 batches was performed. Results: Out of 415 analysed students, majority (59.5%) of the students spent less than thirty minutes per day for searching the medical literature. 92.7% students were never trained for medical literature search on internet. Google (95.9%) was the most favored website used by the students for the medical literature search followed by PubMed. The most common source of information the students used was Wikipedia (73.5%) followed by the individual blogs and views. eBooks and Journals were rarely searched by the students. The Post Covid-19 batches had been using internet for the medical literature search earlier than the Pre-Covid batches (19(10.7% vs 67(28.15%), p value <0.05), spent more time during the day in all categories (p value < 0.05), had got more training (161(90.1%) vs 224(94.1%), p <0.05) and were more trained by the parents. They searched more medical journals and eBooks (17(9.6%) vs 39(16.38%), p value < 0.05). Post Covid-19 students also felt that literature search would be more useful in expanding knowledge, preparing class presentation (40(22.6%) vs 91(38.24%) and 37(20.9%) vs 58(24.37%); p value <0.05). Conclusion: The undergraduate medical students despite using internet, do not frequently do web based medical literature search. Self and peer training are the major factors to acquaint oneself for this research. The journal articles and ebooks are less commonly accessed. The post Covid-19 students use the internet for medical literature search more commonly.

 
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