Abstract
BackgroundWhile many factors can influence the way that cancer care is delivered, including the way that evidence is packaged and disseminated, little research has evaluated how health care professionals who manage cancer patients seek and use this information to identify whether and how this could be supported. Through interviews we identified that general surgeons experience challenges in coordinating care for complex cancer patients whose management is not easily addressed by guidelines, and conducted a population-based survey of general surgeon information needs and information seeking practices to extend these findings.MethodsGeneral surgeons with privileges at acute care hospitals in Ontario, Canada were mailed a questionnaire to solicit information needs (task, importance), information seeking (source, frequency of and reasons for use), key challenges and suggested solutions. Non-responders received up to three reminder packages. Significant differences among sub-groups (age, setting) were examined statistically (Kruskal Wallis, Mann Whitney, Chi Square). Standard qualitative methods were used to thematically analyze open-ended responses.ResultsThe response rate was 44.2% (170/385) representing all 14 health regions. System resource constraints (60.4%), comorbidities (56.4%) and physiologic factors (51.8%) were top-ranked issues creating information needs. Local surgical colleagues (84.6%), other local colleagues (82.2%) and the Internet (81.1%) were top-ranked sources of information, primarily due to familiarity and speed of access. No resources were considered to be highly applicable to patient care. Challenges were related to limitations in diagnostics and staging, operative resources, and systems to support multidisciplinary care, together accounting for 76.0% of all reported issues. Findings did not differ significantly by surgeon age or setting of care.ConclusionGeneral surgeons appear to use a wide range of information resources but they may not address the complex needs of many cancer patients. Decision-making is challenged by informational and logistical issues related to the coordination of multidisciplinary care. This suggests that limitations in system capacity may, in part, contribute to variable guideline compliance. Further research is required to evaluate the appropriateness of information seeking, and both concurrent and consecutive mechanisms by which to achieve multidisciplinary care.
Highlights
While many factors can influence the way that cancer care is delivered, including the way that evidence is packaged and disseminated, little research has evaluated how health care professionals who manage cancer patients seek and use this information to identify whether and how this could be supported
This population-based survey confirms that general surgeons experience clinical uncertainty at an informational level due to the complexity of care required for cancer patients who have comorbid conditions and other physiologic factors that confound management
Since these uncertainties may not be directly addressed by searching for available research evidence, respondents most often turn to local surgical colleagues, as was found to be the case among family physicians [31,32]
Summary
While many factors can influence the way that cancer care is delivered, including the way that evidence is packaged and disseminated, little research has evaluated how health care professionals who manage cancer patients seek and use this information to identify whether and how this could be supported. Barriers to successful information seeking include limited insight on gaps in knowledge or skill, time constraints, access to information resources, searching ability, perceived attributes of the information sources, critical appraisal skills, and evidence that is incomplete, contradictory, or not applicable to individual patients [23,24,25,26,27,28] It is not known whether search strategies that increase the sensitivity and specificity of retrieving clinically relevant research articles from literature databases, or journals that provide evidence synopses are used by health care providers [29,30]. A systematic review of 19 studies reported that the information sources used most often by general practitioners were textbooks such as physician desk references due to ease of access, and asking colleagues who can provide tacit, experiential knowledge to overcome organizational demands and constraints [31,32]
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