Use of the Internet by Sudanese doctors and medical students.

Full Abstract

Patterns of use of the Internet were investigated by a questionnaire survey of 102 hospital doctors and 123 medical students in Khartoum, Sudan, in January 2005. More doctors (84.3%) had used the Internet than had students (78.9%). Half of consultants (55.0%) used the Internet daily, compared with only 18.2% of junior doctors. Many consultants and junior doctors rated their abilities as poor (60.0% and53.1%). One-third of students (33.3%) used the Internet only for personal and not for academic purposes. Barriers to greater use of the Internet by doctors included: time constraints (80.2%), poor skills (54.6%), no access to full texts of journal articles (53.4%), difficulty in verifying the quality of information (47.6%) and high costs (41.8%). Students faced similar barriers but also listed poor knowledge of the English language.

Author information

Author/s: Ahmed, A M (AM); Yousif, E (E); Abdalla, M E (ME);

Affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Bahr Elghazal, Khartoum, Sudan. awad.sd(-atsign-)gmail.com

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Eastern Mediterranean health journal = La revue de santé de la Méditerranée orientale = al-Majallah al-?i??iyah li-sharq al-mutawassi? (East Mediterr Health J), published in Egypt. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2008 Jan-Feb; vol 14 (issue 1) : pp 134-41

Dates: Created 2008/06/18; Completed 2008/07/18;

PMID: 18557461, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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