Abstract

Information literacy is the ability to find, evaluate, organize, use, and communicate information in all its various formats, most notably in situations requiring decision making, problem solving, or the acquisition of knowledge. The study investigated relationship between medical professionals’ information planning skills and utilization of patients’ health records in tertiary health institutions in South-South, Nigeria. It employed the correlational research design, with a population of 8993 medical professionals. A sample size of 386 using the Krejcie and Morgan table. A face validated instrument named ‘Medical Professionals’ Information planning Skills and Patients Health Records Utilization Questionnaire (MPIPSPHRUQ) was used for data collection, Simple regression was used in answering research questions, also ANOVA was used to answer the hypothesis.

Result: The result showed that there is significant difference in the utilization of patient health records and medical professional information literacy skills. Also, it was found that information planning skills help to develop structured approaches to enhance information searching, develop search tools for each new query, establish an arrangement to satisfy short term information requirements, organize keywords to adapt to search strategies do significantly use information to a very great extent in the tertiary health institutions. The study concluded that information planning skills significantly influence the utilization of patients’ health records by medical professionals of tertiary health institutions. This has demonstrated the relevance of information literacy skills in the health sector especially the tertiary health institutions. With this, the possibility of medical professionals to the utilization of patients’ health records that would enhance their research success is possible and can be reality in south- South of Nigeria. 

Conclusion: Based on this conclusion, the following recommendation was made: Hospitals and medical professionals should urgently make proposal to parent institutions for fund that would enable the hospitals uses appropriate writing styles in a variety of formats, select appropriate publications and dissemination outlets in which to publish, and develop a personal profile in scholarly community using appropriate personal networks in digital technologies.

Keywords: Medical Professionals, Information planning Skills, Patients Health Records, Tertiary Health Institutions, South- South Nigeria.