Use of internet as health information resource by community pharmacists in Nigeria

Purpose The internet has become one of the most commonly used sources for medical and health information. Research that explored the extent to which Nigerian community pharmacists use internet resources for patient care is limited. This study aims to examine the extent to which community pharmacists use the internet for professional practice. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected using a questionnaire which was completed by 115 community pharmacists using convenience sampling technique. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Findings The results revealed that community pharmacists use a variety of online resources, although only about 25 per cent or less use each of the online resources. The critical challenges that hinder their use of the internet were inadequate power supply, lack of funds to procure personal internet facilities, among others. There is significant relative contribution of demographic variables (gender, age, educational qualification and number of years in professional practice) on frequency of internet use among community pharmacists. Practical implications The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN), Lagos Chapter, should organize continuing professional education for their members to expose them to online resources and emerging trends in professional practice. The community pharmacist should also address the problem of inadequate communication with patients by stepping up communication with the patients about their drug therapy not only through the conventional media but also through internet facilities such as email, WhatsApp and so on. Originality/value This study examined the extent to which community pharmacists use the internet for professional activities. This study also empirically investigated the significant relative contribution of demographic variables (gender, age, educational qualification and number of years in professional practice) on the frequency of internet use among community pharmacists.

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Internet literacy skills of community pharmacists in Lagos State, Nigeria

Information and Learning Sciences ◽

10.1108/ils-08-2018-0082 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 120 (3/4) ◽

pp. 242-252 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stella Ngozi Anasi ◽

Folasade Olufunke Lawal ◽

Abiola Paul-Ozieh

Keyword(s):

Professional Practice ◽

Internet Use ◽

Community Pharmacists ◽

Literacy Skills ◽

The Internet ◽

Content Type ◽

Lagos State ◽

Effective Use ◽

The Relationship ◽

Internet Literacy

Purpose Community pharmacists need good retrieval skills and competencies for effective use of online information resources for professional practice. This study aims to ascertain the internet literacy skills of community pharmacists in Lagos State, Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach A survey research design was adopted for the study. Convenience sampling technique was used in selecting community pharmacists. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection, whereas descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Findings The study revealed that community pharmacists possess requisite internet literacy skills for effective use of online health information resources. There is a positive relationship between informational and operational internet literacy skills [r = 0.820, p(0.000) < 0.05], informational and strategic internet literacy skills [r = 0.838, p(0.000) < 0.05] and operational and strategic internet literacy skills [r = 0.810, p(0.000) < 0.05]. There is a statistically significant gender difference in the level of skillfulness in internet use based on self-reported skills. There is a significant relative contribution of demographic variables (gender, age, educational qualification and number of years in professional practice) to the level of skillfulness in internet use among community pharmacists. Practical implications To improve the use of online internet resources, the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, Lagos Chapter, should conduct training needs assessment regularly to offer the right levels of internet use skills. They must be proactive and incorporate training on computer and internet skills into their annual conferences and zonal meetings. They should also prepare and give internet use manuals to their members to read and understand how to use the internet more effectively. Community pharmacists, especially the female pharmacists, should also take advantage of free online training sessions called webinars to improve their internet literacy skills to cope with rapid changes in the e-environment, as well as to boost the quality of health-care services delivery. Pharmacists’ Council of Nigeria, the agency responsible for regulating and controlling the education, training and practice of pharmacy, should include an internet literacy skills module in the Mandatory Professional Continuing Education Programme. Originality/value The study investigated the internet literacy skills of community pharmacists in Lagos State and identified the gender gap in level of skillfulness. This study also explored the relationship between level of skillfulness and internet use, as well as the relationship between community pharmacists’ informational, operational and strategic internet literacy skills.

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Perceptions of time at work

Personnel Review ◽

10.1108/pr-02-2014-0033 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 45 (1) ◽

pp. 29-50 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Aristides Isidoro Ferreira ◽

Joana Diniz Esteves

Keyword(s):

Gender Differences ◽

Design Methodology ◽

Internet Use ◽

The Internet ◽

Content Type ◽

Future Studies ◽

Work Related ◽

Phone Calls ◽

Working Day ◽

The Relationship

Purpose – Activities such as making personal phone calls, surfing on the internet, booking personal appointments or chatting with colleagues may or may not deviate attentions from work. With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to examine gender differences and motivations behind personal activities employees do at work, as well as individuals’ perception of the time they spend doing these activities. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from 35 individuals (M age=37.06 years; SD=7.80) from a Portuguese information technology company through an ethnographic method including a five-day non-participant direct observation (n=175 observations) and a questionnaire with open-ended questions. Findings – Results revealed that during a five-working-day period of eight hours per day, individuals spent around 58 minutes doing personal activities. During this time, individuals engaged mainly in socializing through conversation, internet use, smoking and taking coffee breaks. Results revealed that employees did not perceive the time they spent on non-work realted activities accurately, as the values of these perceptions were lower than the actual time. Moreover, through HLM, the findings showed that the time spent on conversation and internet use was moderated by the relationship between gender and the leisure vs home-related motivations associated with each personal activity developed at work. Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature on human resource management because it reveals how employees often perceive the time they spend on non-work related activities performed at work inaccurately. This study highlights the importance of including individual motivations when studying gender differences and personal activities performed at work. The current research discusses implications for practitioners and outlines suggestions for future studies.

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Lifestyle Segmentation to Explain the Online Health Information–Seeking Behavior of Older Adults: Representative Telephone Survey

Journal of Medical Internet Research ◽

10.2196/15099 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (6) ◽

pp. e15099 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Winja Weber ◽

Anne Reinhardt ◽

Constanze Rossmann

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Health Information ◽

Information Seeking ◽

Internet Use ◽

Information Seeking Behavior ◽

The Internet ◽

Online Health Information ◽

Sociodemographic Variables ◽

Seeking Behavior ◽

Health Related

Background As a result of demographic changes, the number of people aged 60 years and older has been increasing steadily. Therefore, older adults have become more important as a target group for health communication efforts. Various studies show that online health information sources have gained importance among younger adults, but we know little about the health-related internet use of senior citizens in general and in particular about the variables explaining their online health-related information–seeking behavior. Media use studies indicate that in addition to sociodemographic variables, lifestyle factors might play a role in this context. Objective The aim of this study was to examine older people’s health-related internet use. Our study focused on the explanatory potential of lifestyle types over and above sociodemographic variables to predict older adults’ internet use for health information. Methods A telephone survey was conducted with a random sample of German adults aged 60 years and older (n=701) that was quota-allocated by gender, age, educational status, and degree of urbanity of their place of residence. Results The results revealed that participants used the internet infrequently (mean 1.82 [SD 1.07]), and medical personnel (mean 2.89 [SD 1.11]), family and friends (mean 2.86 [SD 1.21]), and health brochures (mean 2.85 [SD 1.21]) were their main sources of health information. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on values, interests, and leisure time activities revealed three different lifestyle types for adults aged over 60 years: the Sociable Adventurer, the Average Family Person, and the Uninterested Inactive. After adding these types as second-step predictors in a hierarchical regression model with sociodemographic variables (step 1), the explained variance increased significantly (R2=.02, P=.001), indicating that the Average Family Person and the Sociable Adventurer use the internet more often for health information than the Uninterested Inactive, over and above their sociodemographic attributes. Conclusions Our findings indicate that the internet still plays only a minor role in the health information–seeking behavior of older German adults. Nevertheless, there are subgroups including younger, more active, down-to-earth and family-oriented males that may be reached with online health information. Our findings suggest that lifestyle types should be taken into account when predicting health-related internet use behavior.

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Internet as a Source of Health Information and its Perceived Influence on Personal Empowerment

Health Information Systems ◽

10.4018/978-1-60566-988-5.ch060 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 958-974

Author(s):

Guy Paré ◽

Jean-Nicolas Malek ◽

Claude Sicotte ◽

Marc Lemire

Keyword(s):

Health Information ◽

Internet Use ◽

Medical Information ◽

Sample Survey ◽

The Internet ◽

Health Issues ◽

Personal Empowerment ◽

Participative Approach ◽

Use Of The Internet ◽

Search For Information

The primary aim of this study is twofold. First, the authors seek to identify the factors that influence members of the general public to conduct Internet searches for health information. Their second intent is to explore the influence such Internet use has on three types of personal empowerment. In the summer of 2007 the authors conducted a household sample survey of a population of Canadian adults. A total of 261 self-administered questionnaires were returned to the researchers. Our findings indicate that use of the Internet as a source of health information is directly related to three main factors: sex, age and the individual’s perceived ability to understand, interpret and use the medical information available online. Further, their results lend support to the notion that using the Internet to search for information about health issues represents a more consumer based and participative approach to health care. This study is one of the first to relate Internet use to various forms of personal empowerment. This area appears to have great potential as a means by which consumers can become more empowered in managing personal health issues.

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A mapping analytic approach to trace development of multidisciplinary research field

Journal of Science and Technology Policy Management ◽

10.1108/jstpm-09-2014-0036 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 98-113 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Xi Zhang ◽

Xiangda Yan ◽

Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos ◽

jinghuai She ◽

Yang Gao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Health Literacy ◽

Health Information ◽

Domain Knowledge ◽

Early Stage ◽

Research Field ◽

Future Research ◽

The Internet ◽

Content Type ◽

The Future ◽

Practical Implications

Purpose – This paper aims to provide clear domain knowledge and recent progresses on electronic healthcare (e-healthcare). Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors use citation analysis to describe the trends of study on e-health with the help of CiteSpace II, a software for visualizing citation-based analysis. By analyzing the 2,752 publications and their citation data in ISI database, the authors proposed renewable figures and tables on ranking critical people, institutes, keywords and journals. Through the most influential articles given by CiteSpace, the authors can grasp the main direction in e-health researches. Furthermore, the authors analyzed the literature at e-health literacy as a case, to better understand the development of research viewpoints. Findings – Through the analysis, the authors found that e-health is a multi-disciplinary research field and the major research about it has changed. During the early stage, health information quality on the Internet dominates. Gradually, the role of information technology (IT) becomes more important. The authors also found that some researchers, recently, have proposed the effects of IT on e-health literacy which can then improve the ability to use health information on the Internet. Research limitations/implications – This paper has some research limitations, such as using an ISI database with most English publications. The future research may be conducted for collecting local publications data in China. It also has some implications. Based on the results, the authors claimed that IT may significantly improve people’s healthcare variance, e.g. e-health literacy. It is necessary to build new IT-based healthcare theories. Practical implications – This paper also has some practical implications. Practitioners and institute may easily come to know which are the hot topics, top institutes and tendencies in the e-healthcare field. Social implications – This paper may help practitioners to find common interests with other institutions and societies. Originality/value – This paper reported the status and trend of research in this field visually, and the result will help researchers to do more in-depth research in the future.

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Internet use is associated with utilization of genetic counseling for BRCA 1/2 mutations in women with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer

Journal of Clinical Oncology ◽

10.1200/jco.2006.24.18_suppl.10654 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 24 (18_suppl) ◽

pp. 10654-10654 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

K. Armstrong ◽

S. Gray ◽

S. Domchek

Keyword(s):

Ovarian Cancer ◽

Genetic Counseling ◽

Family History ◽

Cancer Risk ◽

Health Information ◽

Internet Use ◽

The Internet ◽

Frequent Use ◽

Brca 1 ◽

History Of

10654 Background: Women obtain breast cancer risk information from a variety of sources including mass media, the internet and personal and professional sources. Little is know about how internet use for health information influences choices about breast cancer risk evaluation and decision making. Methods: Case control study of 408 women with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, of whom 217 underwent genetic counseling for BRCA 1/2 testing (cases) and 191 women who did not (controls). Participants received primary care within a large health system in greater Philadelphia, PA. Results: Women with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer who reported frequent use of the internet for health information (>1–2 times a month) were significantly more likely to undergo genetic counseling for BRCA 1/2 testing than women that rarely used the internet to obtain health information (<2 times a year) (odds ratio 2.6; 95% CI 1.7–4.0). This association persisted after adjustment for age, race, education and Gail risk (adjusted odds ratio 2.1; 95% CI 1.05–4.2) Conclusions: Frequent use of the internet for health care information is associated with higher use of genetic counseling for BRCA 1/2 mutations in women with a family history of breast or ovarian cancer. The association can not be explained by differences in education, cancer risk, age or race. A possible hypothesis for this association is that internet use exposes women to more information about genetic testing, BRCA testing opportunities and the experiences of other women who have utilized BRCA counseling services. No significant financial relationships to disclose.

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Informal Caregivers’ Use of Internet-Based Health Resources: An Analysis of the Health Information National Trends Survey (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.11051 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Kelly M. Shaffer ◽

Philip I. Chow ◽

Wendy F. Cohn ◽

Karen S. Ingersoll ◽

Lee M. Ritterband

Keyword(s):

Health Information ◽

Internet Use ◽

Variance Estimation ◽

Informal Caregivers ◽

Health Resources ◽

Good Health ◽

The Internet ◽

Related Information ◽

National Trends ◽

Use Factors

BACKGROUND Informal caregivers express strong interest in technology innovations to help them in their caregiving role; however, divides across sociodemographic characteristics in internet and technology access may preclude the most vulnerable caregivers from accessing such resources. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine caregivers’ internet use, both generally and for seeking health-related information, and whether usage differs as a function of caregivers’ characteristics. METHODS Data were analyzed from the Health Information National Trends Survey 5 Cycle 1. Participants were included in analyses if they self-identified as providing uncompensated care to a close individual. Caregivers reported internet use factors, age, education, rurality, general health, distress, and objective caregiving burden. We used chi-square tests of independence with jackknife variance estimation to compare whether internet use factors differed by caregivers’ characteristics. RESULTS A total of 77.5% (303/391) caregivers surveyed reported ever using the internet. Of internet users, 88.1% (267/303) accessed from a home computer and 83.2% (252/303) from a mobile device. Most caregivers accessed health information for themselves (286/391, 73.1%) or others (264/391, 67.5%); fewer communicated with a doctor over the Web (148/391, 37.9%) or had a wellness app (171/391, 43.7%). Caregivers reporting younger age, more education, and good health were more likely to endorse any of these activities. Furthermore, two-thirds of caregivers (258/391, 66.0%) endorsed trust in health information from the internet. CONCLUSIONS Computers and mobile devices are practical platforms for disseminating caregiving-related information and supportive services to informal caregivers; these modalities may, however, have a more limited reach to caregivers who are older, have less education, and are in poorer health.

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Internet utilization for health information and its associated factors among undergraduate students in Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia - A cross sectional study

10.21203/rs.2.15206/v1 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Mintesnot Hawaze Derseh ◽

Kassahun Dessie Gashu ◽

Tekeba Meshesha ◽

Baye Ashenafi ◽

Abebe Getachew Wolde ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Health Information ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Internet Use ◽

Addis Ababa ◽

Digital Health ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

The Internet ◽

Sectional Study ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Addis Ababa University

Abstract Background: Utilization of Internet is critical to retrieve health information particularly for countries where health care delivery system is incongruent with its population otherwise it could be difficult to address all health problems of the people with limited health professionals. This study sought to determine the magnitude of the Internet use for health information and its associated factors.Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the status of Internet utilization to access health information and its associated factors among the undergraduate students in Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study was conducted among 845 undergraduate students who were selected by Stratified multi-stage sampling from 19 randomly selected departments of Addis Ababa University. Data were collected from March to April 2019 using a pretested structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. The data were entered in to Epi-Info version 7 and exported to the SPSS version 23 for analysis. A binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to assess the association between the study and outcome variables. Result: Almost all 761 (98.8%) of the University students have ever used the Internet for general purposes. Among these the proportion of Internet use, about 59.1% (95% CI: 55.5-62.7) of them used the Internet for health information. Adjusting for all other factors in the final model, Digital health literacy (AOR=1.656, 95% CI: (1.143, 2.397), field of study (AOR= 0.025, 95% CI: (0.007, 0.087), year of study (AOR= 1.609, 95% CI: (1.130, 2.290), and computer device ownership (AOR= 2.314, 95% CI: (1.392, 3.844) were found to be significantly associated with the Internet use for health information.Conclusion: The proportion of Internet use for health information was found to be lower. Digital health literacy, being health science student, year of study and computer ownership were found to be important predictors.

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Lifestyle Segmentation to Explain the Online Health Information–Seeking Behavior of Older Adults: Representative Telephone Survey (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.15099 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Winja Weber ◽

Anne Reinhardt ◽

Constanze Rossmann

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Health Information ◽

Information Seeking ◽

Internet Use ◽

Information Seeking Behavior ◽

The Internet ◽

Online Health Information ◽

Sociodemographic Variables ◽

Seeking Behavior ◽

Health Related

BACKGROUND As a result of demographic changes, the number of people aged 60 years and older has been increasing steadily. Therefore, older adults have become more important as a target group for health communication efforts. Various studies show that online health information sources have gained importance among younger adults, but we know little about the health-related internet use of senior citizens in general and in particular about the variables explaining their online health-related information–seeking behavior. Media use studies indicate that in addition to sociodemographic variables, lifestyle factors might play a role in this context. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to examine older people’s health-related internet use. Our study focused on the explanatory potential of lifestyle types over and above sociodemographic variables to predict older adults’ internet use for health information. METHODS A telephone survey was conducted with a random sample of German adults aged 60 years and older (n=701) that was quota-allocated by gender, age, educational status, and degree of urbanity of their place of residence. RESULTS The results revealed that participants used the internet infrequently (mean 1.82 [SD 1.07]), and medical personnel (mean 2.89 [SD 1.11]), family and friends (mean 2.86 [SD 1.21]), and health brochures (mean 2.85 [SD 1.21]) were their main sources of health information. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on values, interests, and leisure time activities revealed three different lifestyle types for adults aged over 60 years: the Sociable Adventurer, the Average Family Person, and the Uninterested Inactive. After adding these types as second-step predictors in a hierarchical regression model with sociodemographic variables (step 1), the explained variance increased significantly (R2=.02, P=.001), indicating that the Average Family Person and the Sociable Adventurer use the internet more often for health information than the Uninterested Inactive, over and above their sociodemographic attributes. CONCLUSIONS Our findings indicate that the internet still plays only a minor role in the health information–seeking behavior of older German adults. Nevertheless, there are subgroups including younger, more active, down-to-earth and family-oriented males that may be reached with online health information. Our findings suggest that lifestyle types should be taken into account when predicting health-related internet use behavior.

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Assessment of quality of information available over the internet about vegan diet

Nutrition & Food Science ◽

10.1108/nfs-02-2019-0044 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 49 (6) ◽

pp. 1142-1152 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Olivia Genevieve El Jassar ◽

Isobel Nadia El Jassar ◽

Evangelos I. Kritsotakis

Keyword(s):

Health Information ◽

Poor Quality ◽

Vegan Diet ◽

The Internet ◽

Quality Of Information ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Content Type ◽

Flesch Reading Ease ◽

Written Information

Purpose This paper aims to assess the quality of health information available to patients seeking online advice about the vegan diet. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional sample of patient-oriented websites was selected by searching for “Vegan diet” in the three most popular search engines. The first 50 websites from each search were examined. Quality of information was assessed using the DISCERN instrument, a questionnaire tool designed to judge the quality of written information on treatment choices. Readability was determined with the Flesch Reading Ease score (FRES) and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL). Relevance to health and disease was assessed by counting the appearances of ten related keywords, generated by searching the query term “Vegan diet” into PubMed and recording the top ten health-related words. Findings Of 150 websites retrieved, 67 (44.7 per cent) met inclusion criteria. Of these, 42 (62.7 per cent) were non-pharmaceutical commercial, 7 (10.4 per cent) institutional, 6 (9.0 per cent) magazines or newspapers, 4 (6.0 per cent) support websites, 4 (6.0 per cent) charitable websites, 2 (3.0 per cent) encyclopedias and 2 (3.0 per cent) personal blogs. The overall DISCERN rating of the websites was fair (mean 41.6 ± 15.4 on an 80-point scale), but nearly half (31/67) of the websites were assessed as having “poor” or “very poor” quality of information. FRES and FKGL readability indices met the recommended standards on average (means 63.3 ± 9.6 and 6.6 ± 1.7, respectively), but did not correlate with high DISCERN ratings. Analysis of variance on DISCERN scores (F(6,60) = 6.536, p < 0.001) and FRES (F(6,60) = 2.733, p = 0.021) yielded significant variation according to website source type. Originality/value Quality standards of health information available on the internet about the vegan diet vary greatly. Patients are at risk of exposure to low quality and potentially misleading information over the internet and should be consulting dietitians or physicians to avoid being misled.

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