Abstract

Every form of information resource needed to support academics is available on the Internet both retrospective and current. The research determined information seeking and use of the Internet by medical students of the College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nnewi, Nigeria. Data was collected using a questionnaire. Sample was 161 clinical students in 400 to 600 levels of study. Result shows that Internet was used daily by 72% of the respondents. Internet was used mainly to search for medical information (82%), social media communication, (77.6%) and for course assignments (62.2%). There is low use of academic resources such as online databases, e-journals, e-books and library websites to find information. The most frequently used website is Wikipedia (30.4%). This is followed by Medscape (25.5%) and PubMed (20.5%). Lack of Internet access (81.3%) was a barrier to the effective use of the Internet by the medical students. Other barriers identified by the respondents include: restriction of important information for payment (78.3%) and too many results returned for search (70.8%). The study concluded that Medical librarians have a role in improving students’ use of educational resources on the Internet through an extensive and curriculum based information literacy programme.

Keywords: Internet use, medical students, medical education, information seeking behaviour.