What clinical information resources are available in family physicians' offices?

BACKGROUND. When faced with questions about patient care, family physicians usually turn to books in their personal libraries for the answers. The res ources in these libraries have not been adequately characterized. METHODS. We recorded the titles of all medical books in the personal librar ies of 103 randomly selected family physicians in eastern Iowa. We also not ed all clinical information that was posted on walls, bulletin boards, refr igerators, and so forth. Participants were asked to describe their use of o ther resources such as computers, MEDLINE, reprint files, and "peripheral b rains" (personal notebooks of clinical information). For each physician, we recorded how often the resources were used to answer clinical questions du ring 2 half-day observation periods. RESULTS. The 103 participants owned a total of 5794 medical books, with 283 6 different titles. Each physician kept an average of 56 books in the offic e, Prescribing references (especially the Physicians' Desk Reference) were most common (owned by 100% of the participants), followed by books on gener al internal medicine (99%), adult infectious disease (89%), and general ped iatrics(83%). Books used to answer clinical questions were more likely to b e up to date (copyright date within 5 years) than unused books (74% vs 27%, P < .001). Items posted on walls included drug dosage charts and pediatric immunization schedules. Only 26% of the physicians had computers in their offices. CONCLUSIONS. Drug-prescribing textbooks were the most common type of book i n family physicians' offices, followed by books on general internal medicin e and adult infectious diseases. Although many books were relatively old, t hose used to answer clinical questions were generally current.