The survey conducted by market research firm BMRB asked 570 GPs to rate the usefulness of the web. 52 per cent of respondents considered it ‘very’ useful while 33 per cent rated it ‘quite’ useful.
Not surprisingly, all younger GPs – those who qualified after 1998 – said they considered the web a valuable tool, compared to 44 per cent of GPs who qualified before 1979.
The poll also found a surprising gap between the attitude of male and female GPs. 61 per cent of women rated the internet as ‘very useful’ compared with only 45 per cent of their male counterparts.
Scotland and Northern Ireland were the areas with the highest percentage (87 per cent) of ‘pro-internet’ GPs in the UK, with only 1 per cent judging the medium ‘not useful at all’.
Commissioned by JICMARS (Joint Industry Committee of Medical Advertisers for Readership Surveys), the research was conducted via postal self-completions between March and August of this year.
The news comes on the heels of the implementation of a new interactive web page initiative to be available at the end of the month as part of the recently launched NHS Choices online service.
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