Medical doctors’ communication skills and information- seeking behaviour in Nigeria

Abstract

Previous studies on medical doctors’ Information-seeking Behaviour (IB) have focused largely on information sources and utilization as well as factors that predict this behaviour without much consideration for how the Doctors’ Communication Skills (DCS) can also influence this behaviour. Moreover, convincing evidence on the relationship between DCS and Doctors’ IB is lacking in previous studies. This study, therefore, was designed to determine DCS as a predictor of medical doctors’ IB in Nigeria. The survey design was adopted and a multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select a sample size of 668 medical doctors. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the qualitative data were content-analyzed. The majority of the doctors (72.4%) usually sought further information during patients’ consultations from colleagues (39.5%) and textbooks/drug compendiums (32.9%), while DCS (r=0.19) had a significant relationship with IB. Thus, the doctors’ communication skills were found to have influenced their information-seeking behaviour, hence these skills should be considered for improved information-seeking behaviour among medical doctors in the country.