Ms Elham Askarian Kakh, Ms Somaye Sadat Akhshik, Mr Abdolhossein Farajpahlou, Mr Reza Rajabali Beglou,
Volume 0, Issue 0 (5-2022)
Abstract
Purpose: The goal of this study was to analyze the situation of information poverty among primary healthcare workers in Tehran. The main research question was to investigate their information poverty based on Chatman's information poverty theory. According to Chatman's theory, people who do not believe that information from outside the group can help them, tend to perform self-protective behaviors that limit access to information. Such behaviors intensify the information poverty of the primary healthcare workers, and since they are involved in the transfer of information between specialists and non-specialists, their information poverty can affect the society's information poverty. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the information poverty of primary healthcare workers in the field of health.
Method: This survey study was conducted by identifying the information poverty indicators and measuring the information poverty of 154 primary healthcare workers. Sampling was done by stratified random method, and data collection was done through a researcher-made questionnaire.
Results: The "deception" component indicated an attempt to present a false reality. "Secrecy" means non-disclosure of information, in the second place; And after that, there was "Situational Relevance" which indicated the selection of information. The lowest average was related to "Risk-taking", which showed the fear of the primary healthcare workers about the consequences of searching information. 41.6% of the primary healthcare workers were in the deceptive group, 21.6% in the situational relevance group, 19.2% in the secretive group and 13.6% in the risk-taking group.
Conclusion: The results showed the information poverty of primary healthcare workers. Most of them had a tendency to deceive others. A fifth of people paid attention to the situational relevance of the information. Some have fueled their information poverty by secrecy, and fewer by risk aversion. The placement of some in two categories refers to the overlap of some components. The most effective factor of deception was "reducing the risk of information seeking" and "distrust". "Value of information" and "use of insider information" were influential in situational relevance. "Coping with a lack of information processing skills" and "mistrust" were the main motivations behind the secrecy. "Regarding information as irrelevant" and "preservation of privacy" were effective on risk aversion.
