Background: The Clinical Information Access Program (CIAP), an online evidence retrieval system, provides NSW health professionals in public hospitals with 24 h access to information supporting evidence-based practice.
Aim: To assess the frequency and type of CIAP usage by senior and junior medical staff and doctors' attitudes to CIAP.
Methods: A convenience sample of 25% of doctors from 65 randomly selected public hospitals completed a survey. Junior (n = 392) and senior (n = 684) doctors' responses were compared using chi2 analyses and t-tests.
Results: Most doctors had heard of CIAP (71.8%) and 60.6% had used it. More junior (72.4%) than senior (53.8%) doctors had used CIAP and junior doctors found it easier to use. Of the users 93.5% believed CIAP had the potential to improve patient care; 55.2% had directly experienced this. Most usage (61.5%) occurred at point-of-care; 74% of users found all/most of the information they sought and 71.6% found the search time to be 'good/excellent'. Users had increased their usage in the past year and predicted increased future usage. The most popular databases were Medline and MIMS. Age, access to other evidence, and lack of training, time and computer skills were associated with non-usage. Junior and senior users differed in 4 of 15 reasons for using CIAP.
Conclusions: CIAP is used and valued by the majority of doctors. Patterns of usage, online experiences and the attitudes toward CIAP of senior doctors who use CIAP are relatively similar to those of junior doctors.