Information needs and information-seeking behaviors of on-call radiology residents

The authors performed a baseline analysis of the information needs and information-seeking behaviors of on-call radiology residents to learn how to better serve their on-call information needs in the future. Print, electronic, and human information resources were made conveniently available to on-call radiology residents. A prospective, descriptive study was performed by using a modification of the critical incident technique to gather data from the residents every morning after being on call. Residents were asked to recall questions that arose, whether they sought answers to the questions, where they searched for answers, whether their search was successful, and whether they believed that patient care was affected. The residents had 182 questions that encompassed all organ systems, imaging modalities, and aspects of radiologic practice. Residents sought answers to 138 of the 182 questions (76%) by using a wide variety of resources, with staff members and textbooks being the most common. They found answers to 114 of 138 questions (83%); 100 of the 114 (88%) asnwered questions affected patient care. The ideal way to meet the information needs of on-call radiology residents is to devise an authoritative information resource that is compatible with their information-seeking behaviors.