Information behaviors and information seeking of nursing students of Mazandaran University of Medical Science

Information growth and recognition of its values is important in personal and professional life for everyone. Thus, it is important to learn special skills in information seeking process during formal education. This study aimed to examine information seeking skills of nursing students of Mazandaran University of Medical Science and their barriers to access needed information.
This In this cross sectional study, all 366 nursing student of Mazandaran University of Medical Science (Nasibeh Faculty of Nursing in Sari and Behshahr) were interviewed. We use a self-administered questionnaire consisted of five sections and 39qustions, to collect data. The questionnaire face validity was approved by Information behavior specialists and its reliability was assured by test retest. We used SPSS V17.0 for descriptive statistics and coloration test
Findings of this study shows that the most important motivation of the students to access and search information was "doing homework. We found that books and "Journals" with average score of 4.10 and 3.91 and general search engines" as the most important ways to access to information. University equipment shortage" mentioned by nursing students as the main challenges their information seeking process.
This study shows that nursing students needs to receive information from the formal and valid channels related to their personal, educational, and professional life. More planning and providing infrastructure is needed for students to access their needed information.