Literature searching skills of first and third professional year pharmacy students

Background: Few studies have evaluated literature searching skills of pharmacy students and how these skills change as student’s progress through school. Aims: Determine if there is a difference in literature searching and search results evaluation skills between first and third professional year students. Methods: Rubrics to assess search strategy and article quality evaluated a drug information assignment given to both classes of students. Scores were compared. Results: A statistically significant difference in results evaluation skills (p=0.001) and no difference in quality of search skills (p=0.8) was found between first and third year students. Third year students scored higher in search evaluation. Conclusion: With no difference in quality of literature searches between the two groups, and the superior performance of third year students in selection of appropriate results, improved clinical knowledge may be sufficient to overcome a suboptimal search strategy. Speed and efficiency may be the benefits of an improved search strategy and need further study.