Information Literacy for Health Professionals

As a health professional, the ability to critically evaluate and ethically use information is crucial.

Your decisions affect the lives of patients, and so it's imperative to access and evaluate the most accurate and up-to-date information available.

Research in the Health Sciences - including theses and dissertations:

• Aims to be unique, detailed examination(s) of an area of focus, which can contribute and add to the evidence-base and (perhaps) practice in the field.
• Aims to:
  • examine the evidence already existing on or about the topic
  • support and verify the research process and findings
  • looks for gaps in the literature which the research may be able to fill.
• Adheres to standards.
• Becomes unique pieces of research. However, the processes for this start from base principles and common premises.
• Literature reviews are not the entirety of the process, but an essential component of the process.

Increased demand for medical or healthcare services has meant that nurses and health professionals are to take on a more proactive and independent role in tending to patients, providing basic treatment and deciding relevant clinical practice. This, in turn, translates into the need for health professionals to be able to translate research and evidence into their practice more efficiently and effectively. Hence, competencies in looking for, evaluating, synthesising and applying documented information or evidence-based practice becomes crucial." (Mokhtar et al.,  2012)

Research shows  a positive and significant relationship between information literacy and evidence-based practice. (Abdekhoda and Khezr, 2021)

As well as information literacy of staff it is important that patients also have a degree of literacy as regards their health.  This is known as Health Literacy and is closely linked with health inequalities and huge cost to the NHS.   NHS Scotland has developed a set of resources for both staff and patients - the Health Literacy Place.

Image courtesy: NHS Education Scotland

Realistic medicine is a philosophy of health care in the Scottish NHS which has been developing over the past few years.  It posits that healthcare is no longer the responsibility of solely the NHS but is rather a collaboration between the patient and the health care system. Past reports on the philosophy and its current development can be found on the Realistic Medicine website (link opens in new window).