Use of the Internet by Sudanese doctors and medical students

ABSTRACT

Patterns of use of the Internet were investigated by a questionnaire survey of 102 hospital doctors and 123 medical students in Khartoum, Sudan, in January 2005. More doctors [84.3%] had used the Internet than had students [78.9%]. Half of consultants [55.0%] used the Internet daily, compared with only 18.2% of junior doctors. Many consultants and junior doctors rated their abilities as poor [60.0% and 53.1%]. One-third of students [33.3%] used the Internet only for personal and not for academic purposes. Barriers to greater use of the Internet by doctors included time constraints [80.2%], poor skills [54.6%], no access to full texts of journal articles [53.4%], difficulty in verifying the quality of information [47.6%] and high costs [41.8%]. Students faced similar barriers but also listed poor knowledge of the English language