An interesting article about American pediatricians' reading habits showed that pediatricians read journal articles primarily for current awareness. They chose the formats that were most convenient to them, read quickly and often relied on print journals and personal subscriptions. However they tended to rely on e-resources for research, writing and presentations, most likely provided by the library. The authors said this finding is similar to the results of many studies of physicians.
Summaries of findings :
Amount of reading - Read on average between 145 and 184 articles per year
Age of articles read - 81% of the reading were from the current year
Time spent - On average spent 20 minutes per reading, ie about 49 -61 hrs per year reading articles (other healthcare professionals spent an average of 118 hrs per year reading an average of 322 journal articles )
Purpose of reading - Principal purpose : 50 % for current awareness
Secondary purposes : 30.3 % for treatment, 20% for diagnosis, 18.2% for teaching
Outcomes of reading - Improved a result 43.5%, inspired new thinking 42.2%, helped narrowed the focus 17%
Source & formats of reading - Mostly from personal and print subscriptions for current awareness, but rely on electronic resources provided by the library for research, writing and presentations
Location of reading - Scholarly reading most often at home 50.5%, In office 36.8%, Hospital/clinic only 6.2%
Subscription payment - Personal subscriptions over 5.3 each ( average subscription for scientists and social scientists is under 2 per person).
PubMed use - 71% had used PubMed at some point, about 34 times on average in the past 12 months. As a result of using PubMed, they read between 0 and 1000 articles.
Use of PDA - About half of respondents used a PDA but few used PDAs to download articles .
Source: "Journal reading patterns and preferences of pediatricians" J Medical Library Association 95(1) January 2007 ( free full text)
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