Abstract
A survey of actual practices was conducted to
examine what was needed for nurses to continue developing
as problem-solving professionals incorporating new
knowledge from reliable state-of-the-art literature. A selfadministered
questionnaire was completed by 75 nurses
working at 4 hospitals operated by the Japan Association for
the Development of Community Medicine. Reference searches
could be performed through the hospital LAN at all 4 hospitals.
The results of the questionnaire revealed the following:
1) The frequency of access was such that the retrieval of
information for resolving nursing issues could hardly be called
active, although attempts to utilize online resources in search
of evidence or establishing rationale were seen.
2) Study experience in reference searches/information
retrieval during nursing school was noted by 40.9％ of the
respondents, and wishes for workshops on this subject that
were submitted by many of the respondents indicated a need
to incorporate this topic into continuing nursing education
programs.
3) Training methods call for the systematic coverage of
information technology literacy tailored to the needs of nurses.
4) Needs to account for the convenience of the user, the
development of query functions for particular database/search
engines that are being used, and the training of instructors to
convey skills for reference searches and information retrieval
were identified.
