Comportamento informacional de profissionais da área da saúde: um estudo com residentes do Hospital Ophir Loyola, Belém-Pará

Abstract

Informational behavior studies are dedicated to identify information needs, the way of searching and the use of information by individuals from the point of view of information as a social construction, of the individual as a user and also a provider of information in the cognitive perspective. We sought to know the information behavior of the residents of Ophir Loyola Hospital through qualitative case study research, with the participation of 57 health professionals, medical and nonmedical residents, who answered an electronic questionnaire in order to know their information needs, search behavior and use of information in the hospital routine based on an integrative model validated in Information Science and adapted to the study. The results were treated by analyzing the categories and showed that the residents’ information needs refer to patient care. The main feelings that accompany them when they perceive the information need are: curiosity, anxiety and uncertainty. The search for information occurs at the moment when residents feel the need. Databases are the sources of information they seek most often and those that residents trust most. The use of information retrieved by residents is for the understanding of the clinical problem in different specialties. The integrative model used allowed the achievement of the proposed objectives and the elaboration of a diagram of the residents’ information behavior.