Pilot study of the practical use of internet in medical services: The questionnaire for pharmacists in Japan

We performed a questionnaire survey to 260 pharmacists as a pilot study, in order to know the actual application of IN to medical services in Japan. The response rate of our questionnaire was 40% (105 persons), and 91% of the answers were from pharmacists who works in hospitals, community pharmacies, or clinics. According to the results, 90 of the 105 pharmacists had had some experience of using IN, and 68% of whom (58% of respondents) use IN daily as a means of problem solution on their works. IN was probably used as a relatively reliable information source something like text-books in such cases as acquiring the medical information for patients or other medical staffs. In addition, IN may have been esteemed its facilities and the informational usefulness and reliability. However, since this survey is just a pilot trial, the result dose not necessarily reflect a general situation around IT use. Consequently, this study result could be need by still further research.