Health-Related Message Boards/Chat Rooms on the Web: Discussion Content and Implications for Pharmaceutical Sponsorships

Background Parents commonly use the internet to search for information about their child’s health-related symptoms and guide parental health-related decisions. Despite the impact of parental online health seeking on offline health behaviors, this area of research remains understudied. Previous literature has not adequately distinguished searched behaviors when searching for oneself or one`s child. Objective The purpose of this review is to examine prevalences and associated variables of parent-child online health information seeking; investigate parents’ health-related online behavior regarding how they find, use, and evaluate information; and identify barriers and concerns that they experience during the search. Based on this analysis, we develop a conceptual model of potentially important variables of proxy online health information seeking, with a focus on building an agenda for further research. Methods We conducted a comprehensive systematic literature review of the PsycINFO, JMIR, and PubMed electronic databases. Studies between January 1994 and June 2018 were considered. The conceptual model was developed using an inductive mixed methods approach based on the investigated variables in the study sample. Results A total of 33 studies met the inclusion criteria. Findings suggest that parents worldwide are heavy online users of health-related information for their children across highly diverse circumstances. A total of 6 studies found high parental health anxiety, with prevalences ranging from 14% to 52%. Although parents reported wishing for more guidance from their pediatrician on how to find reliable information, they rarely discussed retrieved information from the web. The conceptual model of proxy online health information seeking includes 49 variables. Conclusions This systematic review identifies important gaps regarding the influence of health-related information on parents’ health behavior and outcomes. Follow-up studies are required to offer parents guidance on how to use the web for health purposes in an effective way, as well as solutions to the multifaceted problems during or after online health information seeking for their child. The conceptual model with the number of studies in each model category listed highlights how previous studies have hardly considered relational variables between the parent and child. An agenda for future research is presented.

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Social Network Mining from the Web

Data Mining Patterns ◽

10.4018/978-1-59904-162-9.ch007 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 149-175 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yutaka Matsuo ◽

Junichiro Mori ◽

Mitsuru Ishizuka

Keyword(s):

Social Network ◽

Search Engine ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Web Content ◽

Message Boards ◽

Network Information ◽

Network Mining ◽

Social Network Mining ◽

The Social ◽

The Web

This chapter describes social network mining from the Web. Since the end of the 1990s, several attempts have been made to mine social network information from e-mail messages, message boards, Web linkage structure, and Web content. In this chapter, we specifically examine the social network extraction from the Web using a search engine. The Web is a huge source of information about relations among persons. Therefore, we can build a social network by merging the information distributed on the Web. The growth of information on the Web, in addition to the development of a search engine, opens new possibilities to process the vast amounts of relevant information and mine important structures and knowledge.

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Web users' information retrieval methods and skills

Online Information Review ◽

10.1108/14684520410553741 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 28 (4) ◽

pp. 254-259 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Carol S. Bond

Keyword(s):

Information Retrieval ◽

The Internet ◽

Search Techniques ◽

Searching Strategy ◽

Health Related ◽

Information Retrieval Methods ◽

The Web

When trying to locate information on the Web people are faced with a variety of options. This research reviewed how a group of health related professionals approached the task of finding a named document. Most were eventually successful, but the majority encountered problems in their search techniques. Even experienced Web users had problems when working with a different interface to normal, and without access to their favourites. No relationship was found between the number of years' experience Web users had and the efficiency of their searching strategy. The research concludes that if people are to be able to use the Web quickly and efficiently as an effective information retrieval tool, as opposed to a recreational tool to surf the Internet, they need to have both an understanding of the medium and the tools, and the skills to use them effectively, both of which were lacking in the majority of participants in this study.

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An Architecture for Diversity-aware Search for Medical Web Content

Methods of Information in Medicine ◽

10.3414/me11-02-0022 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 51 (06) ◽

pp. 549-556 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

K. Denecke

Keyword(s):

System Architecture ◽

User Satisfaction ◽

Medical Information ◽

Medical Terminology ◽

Web Content ◽

Diversity Measures ◽

Health Related ◽

Retrieval Engine ◽

Media Data ◽

The Web

SummaryObjectives: The Web provides a huge source of information, also on medical and health-related issues. In particular the content of medical social media data can be diverse due to the background of an author, the source or the topic. Diversity in this context means that a document covers different aspects of a topic or a topic is described in different ways. In this paper, we introduce an approach that allows to consider the diverse aspects of a search query when providing retrieval results to a user.Methods: We introduce a system architecture for a diversity-aware search engine that allows retrieving medical information from the web. The diversity of retrieval results is assessed by calculating diversity measures that rely upon semantic information derived from a mapping to concepts of a medical terminology. Considering these measures, the result set is diversified by ranking more diverse texts higher.Results: The methods and system architecture are implemented in a retrieval engine for medical web content. The diversity measures reflect the diversity of aspects considered in a text and its type of information content. They are used for result presentation, filtering and ranking. In a user evaluation we assess the user satisfaction with an ordering of retrieval results that considers the diversity measures.Conclusions: It is shown through the evaluation that diversity-aware retrieval considering diversity measures in ranking could increase the user satisfaction with retrieval results.

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Scripting the active patient in online health communities

Journal of Assistive Technologies ◽

10.1108/jat-10-2014-0023 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 86-99

Author(s):

Femke D. Vennik ◽

Samantha A. Adams ◽

Kim Putters

Keyword(s):

Assistive Technology ◽

Web Site ◽

Content Type ◽

Active Patient ◽

Health Related ◽

Health Communities ◽

Group Characteristics ◽

Active Patients ◽

The Web

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to improve the general operationalization of an “active patient,” by examining the specific activities and skills expected of active patients. Design/methodology/approach – Expected activities and necessary skills were studied through a qualitative case study into the development and use of an assistive technology (i.e. web site) aimed at stimulating active patient-ship. Interviews, observations and document analysis were used to capture and explore designers’ inscribing practices and their consequences regarding expected competences and activities of patients using the web site. Findings – Designers inscribed two “co-design roles” that active patients were expected to perform on the web site (co-designing their own healthcare and co-designing the healthcare of peers), for which at least eight different competencies were needed. The absence of skills or facilities to apply these skills resulted in incomplete use, a different use than intended by designers and non-use of the web site. Practical implications – Technological choices and inscribing processes determine who is able or facilitated to become active and who is not. Due to inscribed co-design roles, it also influences the extent to which already active peers are able to perform health-related activities. Different users with different conditions should be taken into account in the design as specific group characteristics can influence level of individual activity. Originality/value – This study is, as far as the authors know, the first that examines the “active patient” concept by studying an assistive technology and using scripting literature, resulting in an improved understanding of what it means to become “active” in terms of skills and activities.

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Assessing the quality, readability and reliability of online information on COVID-19: an infoveillance observational study

10.1101/2020.05.30.20117614 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Paulo Cardoso Lins-Filho ◽

Thuanny Silva de Macêdo ◽

Andressa Kelly Alves Ferreira ◽

Maria Cecília Freire de Melo ◽

Millena Mirella Silva de Araújo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

Online Information ◽

Reading Levels ◽

Content Type ◽

Content Quality ◽

Flesch Reading Ease ◽

Web Contents ◽

Health Related ◽

Quality And Reliability ◽

The Web

AbstractObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the quality, reliability and readability of internet-based information on COVID-19 available on Brazil’ most used search engines.MethodsA total of 68 websites were selected through Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The websites content quality and reliability were evaluated using the DISCERN questionnaire, the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria, and the presence of the Health on Net (HON) certification. Readability was assessed by the Flesch Reading Ease adapted to Brazilian Portuguese (FRE-BP).ResultsThe web contents were considered moderate to low quality according to DISCERN and JAMA mean scores. Most of the sample presented very difficult reading levels and only 7.4% displayed HON certification. Websites of Governmental and health-related authorship nature showed lower JAMA mean scores and quality and readability measures did not correlate to the webpages content type.ConclusionCOVID-19 related contents available online were considered of low to moderate quality and not accessible.

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