Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
Spring 4-28-2022
Abstract
The effective gathering and transmission of information is essential to the standard of care provided for patients. Community Health practitioners have a responsibility to acquire and use information in order to be well informed and competently discharge their duties creditably.
The study is a descriptive survey that targeted305 community health practitioners from Primary Health Care centres in five selected Local Governments Area in Ibadan out of which 215 respondents were selected using random sampling technique.
The study revealed that the Community Health practitioners (CHP) in Ibadan needs information relating to health-related, primary healthcare, emergency situations, how to perform some minors operations, drug prescription and administration, disease control and prevention, problem-solving and patient healthcare. Majority of the CHPs possessed the necessary and required skills in information acquisition and utilization. Colleagues, personal contacts, mass media (TV, Radio, Newspapers) and patients’ cases notes were the major sources of information often consulted by the CHP.
Information is an important resource for the community health practitioners to understand and engage in the management of health conditions of their patients. Therefore, the CHPs skills in finding and applying information about healthcare delivery services have a significant influence on their professional competence. If this is to be achieved, however, government should ensure that relevant, adequate and up-to-date information in various formats, like the internet, libraries, reports, etc., are made available to the health workers in primary healthcare centres in Nigeria to enable them meet their information needs regularly. The CHPs should be given comprehensive training on the use of information technologies to source for and acquire health information.