Effects Of Information Literacy On Task Performance Among Clinical Physicians In Public Tertiary Hospitals

[Purpose]Investigate the status of clinical physicians’information literacy and task performance in public tertiary hospitals in China,analyze the characteristics and influencing factors of clinical physicians’information literacy and task performance,and focus on the impact of clinical physicians’information literacy on task performance.To provide a reference basis for improving the clinical physicians’information literacy level and improving their task performance.[Methods]A convenient sampling method was used to select one public tertiary hospital in Beijing and Yichang respectively,and three public tertiary hospitals in Wuhan.In April2020,277 clinician physicians from five hospitals were surveyed by questionnaire.The survey tools mainly include:the general information of clinician physicians,self-designed the information literacy of clinical physicians scale and revised task performance scale.Descriptive analysis,independent-samples t-test,one-way ANOVA,pearson’s bivariate correlations and stepwise multiple linear regression analysis were performed by the statistical package for social science（SPSS21.0）.[Results]1.The four dimensions of the information literacy of clinical physicians scale were information consciousness,information knowledge,information ability and information ethics;the total Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.925;the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of each dimension was intermediate 0.876～0.988;the task performance scale was a single dimension,and its Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.971.2.The total information literacy score of clinical physicians was（3.95±0.49）,the average scores of the four dimensions of information consciousness,information knowledge,information ability and information ethics were（4.56±0.98）,（3.27±0.81）,（3.79±0.60）and（4.43±0.58）,respectively;the total task performance score of clinical physicians was（4.31±0.66）.3.The scores of clinical physicians in different gender,position,employment form,age,length of service,education background,title and department on information literacy and some dimensions were statistically significant（P<0.05）.4.The results of multiple stepwise regression analysis of clinical physicians’information literacy showed that gender,education background and age enter the regression equation,and the predictive variables could explain 12.3%variation of clinical physicians’information literacy（R~2=0.123）.The information literacy level of female clinical physicians was lower than that of male clinical physicians（β=-0.179,P=0.002）;The higher the clinical physicians’education background（β₁=0.235,P<0.001;β₂=0.225,P<0.001）,the higher the level of information literacy;The information literacy level of clinical physicians over 40 years old was higher than that of clinical physicians aged 30 or less（β=0.176,P=0.002）.5.The scores of clinical physicians with different gender,position,employment form,age,length of service,education background and title on task performance were statistically significant（P<0.05）.6.The results of multiple stepwise regression analysis of clinical physicians’task performance showed that information ability,information ethics,employment form,length of service and age entered the regression equation,and the predictive variables could explain 44.6%variation of clinical physicians’task performance（R~2=0.446）.The stronger the information ability（β=0.426,P<0.001）,the higher the level of information ethics（β=0.274,P<0.001）,the better the clinical physicians task performance.The task performance of clinical physicians who were informally compiled was lower than that of clinical physicians who were formally compiled（β=-0.140,P=0.004）;Clinical physicians with 5 to 10 years of service performed better than clinical physicians with less than 5 years of service（β=0.095,P=0.041）;The task performance of clinical physicians aged 36-40 was higher than that of clinical physicians aged 30 or less（β=0.098,P=0.043）.[Conclusions]1.The information literacy scale of clinical physicians had a good reliability and validity.2.Clinical physicians’information literacy was generally on the middle to upper level,but their information knowledge level was general,and there was still room for further improvement.Gender,education background and age were the main influencing factors of clinical physicians’information literacy.3.The overall task performance of clinical physicians was at a high level.Information ability,information ethics,employment form,length of service and age were the main influencing factors of clinical physicians’task performance.4.Hospital managers should pay attention to improving the information literacy of clinical physicians,implement the differentiated information literacy training strategy,strengthen the information ability of clinical physicians,and give full play to the educational function of the hospital library.