Journal of the Medical Library Association最新文献

Objective: Nurses must evaluate and sift through large quantities of information of varying quality as part of patient care. This study sought to determine nurses' evaluation criteria when encountering health information, including consumer health information written for the general public and scholarly sources, such as journal articles.

Methods: We employed a mixed-methods approach with a survey and follow-up individual interviews. In both the survey and interviews, nurses were asked to evaluate information written for the general public or a scholarly audience. Interviewees were encouraged to think aloud to elucidate their criteria. We analyzed data using descriptive statistics and inductive thematic analysis.

Results: Criteria used for both consumer and scholarly information were similar, with accuracy, relevance, authority, purpose, and currency as the most frequently reported. Nurses often relied on easily identifiable characteristics, such as where information came from, funding sources, intended audience, or its concordance with their prior knowledge. Nurses demonstrated awareness of the need to evaluate methodology in studies, especially empirical studies, for accuracy and relevance. However, they were less likely to evaluate methodology in review articles.

Conclusions: Nurses value accurate, relevant information; however, their evaluation criteria are often superficial. Educators should encourage nursing students to engage more deeply with the nuances of evaluation. While many nurses pointed to research and peer review as evidence of accuracy, fewer demonstrated a deeper understanding of how to evaluate particular research methodologies, such as systematic reviews.

Background: Medical educators are increasingly aware of the need for patient-centred and inclusive curricula. Collaboration paired with sound evidence can facilitate efforts in this area. Librarians are well-equipped to help move this work forward, as their skills and expertise can support educators through the process of revising learning materials that will incorporate timely and socially accountable information.

Case presentation: This case report describes an initiative at one Canadian medical school, whereby a health sciences librarian joined an interdisciplinary working group to support the updating of case-based learning materials for the undergraduate medical curriculum. These materials were revised with an anti-oppressive and patient-centred lens, and as an embedded member of the working group the librarian provided on-demand literature searches, participated in conversations regarding the importance of critical appraisal skills, and consulted on sustainable access to electronic materials used in the cases. From this experience and close collaboration, lessons which enhanced their practice and stronger relationships emerged for the librarian.

Conclusions: Involving librarians' expertise in updating learning materials provides many benefits to curriculum developers and presents opportunities for liaison librarians to engage with their faculties more closely. Promoting patient-centredness and inclusivity is an ongoing process, and academic health sciences librarians can apply their expertise to curricular initiatives such as the one described here, while librarians working in clinical settings can support these efforts through specialized forms of teaching and outreach.

In Fall 2019, the Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MCMLA) welcomed a new incoming chair who outlined four priorities for their tenure including "adopting Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) values, policies, and practices in every aspect of the organization" [1]. These priorities led to the MCMLA Executive Committee approving the creation of the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Task Force. The task force created a survey to capture the makeup of the current MCMLA membership, as well as to assess the diversity climate of the organization.

Objectives: This interview study is a follow-up to a state-wide survey of school nurses' information needs conducted in 2022. Few studies have explored school nurses' information needs, with little focus on searching behaviors or barriers to practice.

Methods: The principal investigator interviewed participants online about their thoughts on survey results, how they find information, and challenges within the profession.

Results: After interviews with school nurses within rural, suburban, and urban districts in the state, the authors found that school nurses required information on finite topics but had little access to subscription resources, little training in critical analysis, and lacked time for professional development.

Conclusion: School nurses within Illinois have routine information needs, most of which can be answered using a series of go-to resources. They are understaffed and overworked, which results in them having little time to do more than surface-level searching for care-related queries. Medical librarians may be able to assist this oft overlooked population with their information needs by providing workshops and resources.

Background: New York State (NYS) residents living in rural communities experience multiple barriers to accessing healthcare. Telehealth, or remote provision of healthcare services, could address these barriers. However, telehealth remains underutilized in rural communities due to limited access to broadband and lack of provider/patient awareness. Rural libraries could serve as telehealth hubs and thereby increase telehealth uptake.

Case presentation: A community-academic partnership was formed between the University of Rochester Wilmot Cancer Institute and the Community Cancer Action Council, a group of 29 community stakeholders. The partnership surveyed libraries across NYS to assess telehealth capacity. After identifying a library to pilot a telehealth hub, surveys were sent to that library's patrons and staff to assess perspectives on telehealth. Fifty-three libraries (19.4%) responded to the initial survey, 92.2% of whom felt libraries could beneficially host telehealth hubs. The Macedon Public Library was chosen as the pilot location as they had constructed a private telehealth booth. 60% of 48 Macedon community members surveyed indicated they would utilize telehealth in the library, while 89% of 9 Macedon library staff agreed they were committed to implementing telehealth services.

Conclusions: We found high community interest in establishing a community telehealth hub in a library. In the next phase of the project, the community-academic partnership will promote use of telehealth to oncology providers.

Background: The Early Career Librarians Initiative of the South Central Chapter of the Medical Library Association (ECLI) offered a webinar series that addressed topics of interest to new professionals such as networking, goal setting, and salary negotiation. Additionally, the ECLI assessed participant feedback on the series through a program evaluation survey.

Case presentation: ECLI partnered with the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM), Region 3, to offer six webinars over the course of two years. Attendees were asked to complete a survey. Quantitative results were analyzed, and qualitative free-text responses were thematically coded. A total of 567 people attended the webinars, and 154 completed the survey. Four major themes emerged as the most useful aspects of the webinar series: practical tips, encouragement, and real-life experience.

Conclusion: Early career librarians often feel overwhelmed and are interested in guidance on career planning and building professional soft skills. This highly attended webinar series and positive evaluation feedback, demonstrates the value of providing accessible online professional development opportunities for early career and transitioning librarians, offering valuable information and support in key areas of need.

Background: This case report describes the integration of a capstone Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) assignment into a first-year medical student curriculum and presents an analysis of the correlation between search strategy quality and article selection quality within that assignment.

Case presentation: A whole-task EBM assignment, requiring students to address a clinical scenario by completing all EBM steps, was implemented after a curriculum-integrated EBM course. Student performance on their search strategy and article selection was assessed using a rubric (1-4 scale). Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to assess the relationship between these two variables. Eighty-two students completed the assignment. Fifty-nine percent received a score of 3 for their search strategy, while 77% received a score of 4 for article selection. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was 0.19 (p-value = 0.086).

Conclusions: While a weak, non-statistically significant correlation was observed between search quality and article selection, the analysis revealed patterns that may inform future instructional design. Educators should consider emphasizing the importance of selecting up-to-date and high-quality evidence and addressing common search errors. Further research, incorporating direct observation and baseline assessments, is needed to draw more definitive conclusions.

Objective: Predatory journal articles do not undergo rigorous peer review and so their quality is potentially lower. Citing them disseminates the unreliable data they may contain and may undermine the integrity of science. Using citation analysis techniques, this study investigates the influence of predatory journals in the health sciences.

Methods: The twenty-six journals in the "Medical Sciences" category of a known predatory publisher were selected. The number of articles published by these journals was recorded based on the information from their websites. The "Cited References" search function in Web of Science was used to retrieve citation data for these journals.

Results: Of the 3,671 articles published in these predatory journals, 1,151 (31.4%) were cited at least once by 3,613 articles indexed in Web of Science. The number of articles that cited articles published in predatory journals increased significantly from 64 in 2014 to 665 in 2022, an increase of 10-fold in nine years. The citing articles were published by researchers from all over the world (from high-, middle-, and lower-income countries) and in the journals of traditional and open access publishers. Forty-three percent (1,560/3,613) of the citing articles were supported by research funds.

Conclusions: The content from articles published in predatory journals has infiltrated reputable health sciences journals to a substantial extent. It is crucial to develop strategies to prevent citing such articles.

Background: Systematic reviews are increasingly appearing in doctoral theses and being supported by librarians. There is, however, evidence that students struggle to undertake systematic reviews.

Case presentation: We sought to understand the perspectives of, and confidence utilising systematic review search methods following an online escape room teaching intervention as part of our in-person orientation session for Doctorate in Clinical Psychology trainees. Following the session, trainees were invited to participate in an online survey to which we received a 90% response rate (n=35). The escape room was enjoyed by most trainees with many using the words "fun" and "engaging" to describe the intervention, this despite more participants finding the escape room difficult. The average scores for confidence in utilising search syntax were positive, but there was a wide range of scores. Many of the comments that trainees made centred on time pressure to escape. We believe that allowing the trainees more time would increase their enjoyment of the game and aid their learning.

Conclusion: Our systematic review escape room demonstrates that key methodological concepts and search skills can be taught in an active, fun, and engaging way that helps introduce and scaffold learning for later in-depth teaching.

Background: To support evidence synthesis and clinical searching, a team of librarians developed and validated infant age (birth to 23 months) search hedges for PubMed (National Library of Medicine) and Medline (OVID).

Methods: We developed four sensitive hedges by selecting terms that refer to infants. Three of the hedges had identical MeSH terms and keywords but used different field tags, and the fourth was a simple keyword hedge. We compared our hedges to the built-in MeSH-based infant filter. We used relative recall calculations to validate each hedge's performance against a gold standard reference set.

Results: In PubMed the similarly structured hedges performed in a range of 83.2%-83.8% sensitivity and 88.2%-89.7% specificity. The simple keyword hedge performed with an 83.5% sensitivity and 89.7% specificity. The filter generated a 70.1% sensitivity and 96.2% specificity. Similarly, in Ovid Medline, the set of similar hedges performed in a range of 82.9%-83.6% sensitivity and 88.1%-89.4% specificity. The simple keyword hedge performed with an 82.9% sensitivity and 90.8% specificity. The filter generated a 69.6% sensitivity and 96.2% specificity.

Discussion: The variation in field tags did not provide a significant difference in the areas of sensitivity and specificity. The filter performed as expected with higher specificity rather than sensitivity. The simple keyword hedge performed better than anticipated with comparable sensitivity and specificity of the more complex hedges. When searching for infant population articles, the simple keyword search and filter work well for quick, clinical searching. For evidence synthesis, we recommend using one of the more sensitive infant hedges.