Information literacy skills and training of licensed practical nurses in Alberta, Canada: results of a survey

Objective: This study examined accessibility of communication tools in the workplace, use of education to update nursing knowledge, and use of information to make specific decisions in practice among registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) in rural and remote communities in Canada.Methods: Data were analyzed from the cross-sectional survey, “Nursing Practice in Rural and Remote Canada II,” of regulated nurses practicing in all provinces and territories of Canada. Data were collected from April 2014 to August 2015.Results: The survey was completed by 3,822 of 9,622 nurses (40% response), and the present analysis was conducted with a subsample of 2,827 nurses. High-speed Internet was the most accessible communication tool, and nurses used “online/electronic education” more often than “in-person education” to update their nursing knowledge. Internet searches were used more often than several other online/electronic sources to inform decision making. Compared to LPNs, RNs reported greater workplace access to most communication tools and greater use of online/electronic education as well as information sources in online/electronic and print formats. Compared to nurses in community-based health care and hospital settings, nurses in long-term care settings reported lower access to most communication tools, lower use of online/electronic and in-person education, and lower use of online/electronic information.Conclusions: Access to continuing education and up-to-date information is important for effective patient care. This study points to a need for further research on the continuing education and information needs of rural and remote RNs and LPNs, and on their capacity to incorporate and apply new knowledge in practice.

Background: With the advent of the information age, rapid progress has been made in Chinese medical and health services. As the main force to give thorough, systematic and integral services for patients, nurses play an important role in the development of information-based medical care. However, there is a lack of research on the information literacy of nurses in the hospitals of different levels in China.Methods: We selected 30 hospitals in Shaanxi Province by convenient sampling method and distributed 3,480 questionnaires from March to July 2020. The self-reported questionnaire included general information of nurses and their information literacy scale which was filled in the form of anonymity on the Internet. We then performed descriptive analyses, univariate analysis and multiple linear regression analysis on the collected data.Results: We obtained 3,011 valid questionnaires, with the response rate of 94.71% (n=3,296). The total score of information literacy of 3,011 nurses was 114.18 ± 18.62, including 115.39 ± 17.66 for tertiary hospital nurses, 114.65 ± 19.02 for secondary hospital nurses and 105.00 ± 18.68 for primary hospital nurses (F=33.755, P=0.000). The nurses who were in primary hospital, with low education background or at older age, could not use database, had not participated in information literacy training, spent less spare time on learning, read less literature, had lower information literacy level (F＝39.687, P＝0.000). Conclusions: There are differences in nurses' information literacy among hospitals of different levels and several factors are associated with the information literacy. Since the information literacy of nurses in primary hospitals is the lowest, we should pay special attention to improving their information literacy, in particular. The government should strengthen information support and organize information literacy training. The hospitals should offer courses, lectures, seminars to improve the information literacy of nurses. Nurses should improve their information skills, read the latest professional literature, and constantly improve themselves.

The 2019 virtual issue of the Health Information and Libraries Journal (HILJ) is published to link to the 2019 EAHIL Workshop taking place in Basel, Switzerland on 17‐20 June 2019. The workshop is structured around six topics: (i) Roadmap of our Profession; (ii) Technology Uptake; (iii) Ecology of Scholarly Communications; (iv) Impact + Assessment; (v) Benchmarking + Advocacy; (vi) Evidence‐Based Practice. These themes have been used to compile this virtual issue, which contains published articles selected from HILJ from the March 2019 issue through to June 2017. The virtual issue mirrors the format of a regular issue of HILJ, namely a review article, five original articles and articles from our three regular features: ‘Dissertations into Practice’, ‘International Perspectives and Initiatives’ and ‘Teaching and Learning in Action’. The authors come from the UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, Iran and Belgium. All articles included in this virtual issue are available free online.