Information literacy - what is it about? : literature review of the concept and the context

Objectives: The use of IT in health care has merged advanced knowledge and skills for health care professionals. Former studies indicate that basic skills in computer use are no more than comprehensive competencies to manage electronically stored information in health care. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature focusing on the concept information literacy in the field of health, nursing and medical informatics. The target is to find out how information literacy is defined, in what kind of context it is presented and who are the focus of interest. Methods: An automated literature search was performed on-line to Medline and by using the EndNote Bibliographic Software. All together the number of papers analyzed was 97 or 78% of the total literature search result. Results: The survey indicates that the concept information literacy does not exist as such in the literature, but it can be found as a synonym to ‘computer literacy’ or even more obscure concepts such as ‘informatics awareness’ or ‘computer experience’. The definitions of these concepts varied considerably. A variety of descriptions of educational programs were also found, none were based on the IMIA ecommendations. Conclusions: In international cooperation such as that of IMIA WG1, a wide range of efforts still needs to be carried out to compile educational programmes in health informatics to enhance knowledge and skills in computer use among health care professionals.