scholarly journals The Online Health Information Needs of Family Physicians: Systematic Review of Qualitative and Quantitative Studies (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet van der Keylen ◽  
Johanna Tomandl ◽  
Katharina Wollmann ◽  
Ralph Möhler ◽  
Mario Sofroniou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Full Text ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Family Physicians ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Quantitative Studies

BACKGROUND Digitalization and the increasing availability of online information have changed the way in which information is searched for and retrieved by the public and by health professionals. The technical developments in the last two decades have transformed the methods of information retrieval. Although systematic evidence exists on the general information needs of specialists, and in particular, family physicians (FPs), there have been no recent systematic reviews to specifically address the needs of FPs and any barriers that may exist to accessing online health information. OBJECTIVE This review aims to provide an up-to-date perspective on the needs of FPs in searching, retrieving, and using online information. METHODS This systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies searched a multitude of databases spanning the years 2000 to 2020 (search date January 2020). Studies that analyzed the online information needs of FPs, any barriers to the accessibility of information, and their information-seeking behaviors were included. Two researchers independently scrutinized titles and abstracts, analyzing full-text papers for their eligibility, the studies therein, and the data obtained from them. RESULTS The initial search yielded 4541 studies for initial title and abstract screening. Of the 144 studies that were found to be eligible for full-text screening, 41 were finally included. A total of 20 themes were developed and summarized into 5 main categories: <i>individual needs</i> of FPs before the search; <i>access needs</i>, including factors that would facilitate or hinder information retrieval; <i>quality needs</i> of the information to hand; <i>utilization needs</i> of the information available; and <i>implication needs</i> for everyday practice. CONCLUSIONS This review suggests that searching, accessing, and using online information, as well as any pre-existing needs, barriers, or demands, should not be perceived as separate entities but rather be regarded as a sequential process. Apart from accessing information and evaluating its quality, FPs expressed concerns regarding the applicability of this information to their everyday practice and its subsequent relevance to patient care. Future online information resources should cater to the needs of the primary care setting and seek to address the way in which such resources may be adapted to these specific requirements.

scholarly journals The Online Health Information Needs of Family Physicians: Systematic Review of Qualitative and Quantitative Studies

10.2196/18816 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. e18816
Author(s):  
Piet van der Keylen ◽  
Johanna Tomandl ◽  
Katharina Wollmann ◽  
Ralph Möhler ◽  
Mario Sofroniou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Full Text ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Family Physicians ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Quantitative Studies

Background Digitalization and the increasing availability of online information have changed the way in which information is searched for and retrieved by the public and by health professionals. The technical developments in the last two decades have transformed the methods of information retrieval. Although systematic evidence exists on the general information needs of specialists, and in particular, family physicians (FPs), there have been no recent systematic reviews to specifically address the needs of FPs and any barriers that may exist to accessing online health information. Objective This review aims to provide an up-to-date perspective on the needs of FPs in searching, retrieving, and using online information. Methods This systematic review of qualitative and quantitative studies searched a multitude of databases spanning the years 2000 to 2020 (search date January 2020). Studies that analyzed the online information needs of FPs, any barriers to the accessibility of information, and their information-seeking behaviors were included. Two researchers independently scrutinized titles and abstracts, analyzing full-text papers for their eligibility, the studies therein, and the data obtained from them. Results The initial search yielded 4541 studies for initial title and abstract screening. Of the 144 studies that were found to be eligible for full-text screening, 41 were finally included. A total of 20 themes were developed and summarized into 5 main categories: individual needs of FPs before the search; access needs, including factors that would facilitate or hinder information retrieval; quality needs of the information to hand; utilization needs of the information available; and implication needs for everyday practice. Conclusions This review suggests that searching, accessing, and using online information, as well as any pre-existing needs, barriers, or demands, should not be perceived as separate entities but rather be regarded as a sequential process. Apart from accessing information and evaluating its quality, FPs expressed concerns regarding the applicability of this information to their everyday practice and its subsequent relevance to patient care. Future online information resources should cater to the needs of the primary care setting and seek to address the way in which such resources may be adapted to these specific requirements.

scholarly journals Perceived Efficiency Outcomes, Sources and Awareness of Online Health Information among the Elderly during COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (15) ◽  
pp. 8121
Author(s):  
Gizell Green ◽  
Riki Tesler ◽  
Cochava Sharon
Keyword(s):  
Health Status ◽  
Health Information ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Safety Skills ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Information Efficiency ◽  
Online Sources

The Internet and social media are crucial platforms for health information. Factors such as the efficiency of online health information, the outcomes of seeking online health information and the awareness of reliable sources have become increasingly important for the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to examine differences between elderly individuals’ income above and below the average monthly wage in relation to their online health information efficiency and the outcomes of seeking online health information; to evaluate types of online information sources with online health information efficiency and the outcomes of seeking online health information; and to explore online health information efficiency as a mediator between health status and awareness of online sources. A cross-sectional study design was conducted with 336 elderly participants age 65 or older. The participants volunteered to complete a questionnaire. No differences were found between the two groups regarding efficiency in retrieving health information from official online health sites and Google. Perceived efficiency mediated health status and awareness of online sources. In these challenging times, it is important to provide a tailor-made education strategy plan for reliable sources of online health information for the elderly, in order to enhance their technology safety skills. It is also important to explore other mediating variables between health status and awareness of online sources.

A Tool for Quantifying the Quality of Online Health Information on Student Health Center Websites (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anagha Kulkarni ◽  
Mike Wong ◽  
Tejasvi Belsare ◽  
Risha Shah ◽  
Diana Yu Yu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Health Center ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Student Health ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Student Health Center

BACKGROUND The Internet has become a major source of health information especially for adolescents and young adults. Unfortunately, inaccurate, incomplete or outdated health information is widespread online. Often adolescents and young adults turn to authoritative websites such as the student health center (SHC) website of the university they are attending to obtain reliable health information. Although most on-campus SHC clinics comply with the American College Health Association (ACHA) standards, their websites are not subject to any standards or code of conduct. In the absence of quality standards or guidelines, the monitoring and compliance processes do not exist for SHC websites either. As such, there is no oversight on the health information published on the SHC websites by any central governing body. OBJECTIVE Our objective is to enable researchers to monitor online information quality at scale. We have created a tool that can efficiently quantify the quality of information posted on SHC websites about a health topic. Specifically, this quantitative tool provides information on quality, such as reading ease, coverage of the topic, and the degree of fact-based objective information. METHODS Our cross-functional team has designed and developed an open-source software, QMOHI: Quantitative Measures of Online Health Information, using the Agile software development methodology. The QMOHI tool finds the SHC website and gathers information on the specific health topic of interest from a prespecified list of university websites. Based on the retrieved text, the tool computes eight different quality metrics. The QMOHI tool is a fully automated tool that is designed to be scalable, generalizable, and robust. RESULTS The first empirical evaluation shows that the QMOHI tool is highly scalable and substantially more efficient than the manual approach of assessing online information quality. The second experimental results demonstrate QMOHI’s ability to work effectively with starkly different health topics (COVID, Cancer, LARC, and Condom) and with narrowly focused topics (hormonal IUD and copper IUD); thereby establishing the generalizability and versatility of the tool. The results from the last experiment demonstrate that QMOHI is not vulnerable to typical structural changes that SHC websites may undergo (e.g. URL changes) over a long period of time. QMOHI is able to support longitudinal studies by being robust to such website changes. CONCLUSIONS QMOHI allows public health researchers and practitioners to conduct large-scale studies of SHC websites that were previously too time intensive. The capability to generalize broadly or focus narrowly allows for wide applications of QMOHI, equipping researchers to study both mainstream and underexplored health topics. QMOHI’s ability to robustly analyze SHC websites periodically facilitates longitudinal investigations and monitor SHC progress. QMOHI serves as a launching pad for our future work that aims to develop a broadly applicable public health tool for online health information studies with potential applications far beyond SHC websites.

scholarly journals Protocol paper for the ‘Harnessing resources from the internet to maximise outcomes from GP consultations (HaRI)’ study: a mixed qualitative methods study

BMJ Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. e024188
Author(s):  
Maureen Seguin ◽  
Laura Hall ◽  
Helen Atherton ◽  
Rebecca Barnes ◽  
Geraldine Leydon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Patient Questionnaires ◽  
Ethical Approval ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Questionnaire Studies

IntroductionMany patients now turn to the internet as a resource for healthcare information and advice. However, patients’ use of the internet to manage their health has been positioned as a potential source of strain on the doctor–patient relationship in primary care. The current evidence about what happens when internet-derived health information is introduced during consultations has relied on qualitative data derived from interview or questionnaire studies. The ‘Harnessing resources from the internet to maximise outcomes from GP consultations (HaRI)’ study combines questionnaire, interview and video-recorded consultation data to address this issue more fully.Methods and analysisThree data collection methods are employed: preconsultation patient questionnaires, video-recorded consultations between general practitioners (GP) and patients, and semistructured interviews with GPs and patients. We seek to recruit 10 GPs practising in Southeast England. We aim to collect up to 30 patient questionnaires and video-recorded consultations per GP, yielding up to 300. Up to 30 patients (approximately three per participating GP) will be selected for interviews sampled for a wide range of sociodemographic characteristics, and a variety of ways the use of, or information from, the internet was present or absent during their consultation. We will interview all 10 participating GPs about their views of online health information, reflecting on their own usage of online information during consultations and their patients’ references to online health information. Descriptive, conversation and thematic analysis will be used respectively for the patient questionnaires, video-recorded consultations and interviews.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval has been granted by the London–Camden & Kings Cross Research Ethics Committee. Alongside journal publications, dissemination activities include the creation of a toolkit to be shared with patients and doctors, to guide discussions of material from the internet in consultations.

scholarly journals Online Health Information Seeking by Parents for Their Children: Systematic Review and Agenda for Further Research

10.2196/19985 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. e19985
Author(s):  
Christian Kubb ◽  
Heather M Foran
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Health Information Seeking ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Online Health Information Seeking ◽  
The Web

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.

Readability of Online Health Information: A Meta-Narrative Systematic Review

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 487-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lubna Daraz ◽  
Allison S. Morrow ◽  
Oscar J. Ponce ◽  
Wigdan Farah ◽  
Abdulrahman Katabi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
General Public ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reading Level ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Cross Sectional

Online health information should meet the reading level for the general public (set at sixth-grade level). Readability is a key requirement for information to be helpful and improve quality of care. The authors conducted a systematic review to evaluate the readability of online health information in the United States and Canada. Out of 3743 references, the authors included 157 cross-sectional studies evaluating 7891 websites using 13 readability scales. The mean readability grade level across websites ranged from grade 10 to 15 based on the different scales. Stratification by specialty, health condition, and type of organization producing information revealed the same findings. In conclusion, online health information in the United States and Canada has a readability level that is inappropriate for general public use. Poor readability can lead to misinformation and may have a detrimental effect on health. Efforts are needed to improve readability and the content of online health information.

Online Health Information Consumers’ Learning across Health-Related Search Tasks from the Perspective of Retrieval Platform Switching (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yijing Chen ◽  
Hanming Lin ◽  
Jin Zhang ◽  
Yiming Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Health Knowledge ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Platform Switching ◽  
Information Consumers

BACKGROUND Online health information retrieval has been a top choice for acquiring health information and knowledge by millions worldwide. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate consumers’ modification of retrieval platform switch paths across health-related search tasks and learning via such a change. METHODS A lab user experiment was designed to obtain data on consumers’ health information search behavior. Participants accomplished health-related information search tasks. Screen movements were recorded by EV screen-recording software. The participants underwent in-depth interviews immediately after finishing the tasks. Screen recordings and interview data were both coded and analyzed. RESULTS Three types of learning, including the similar transfer learning, optimizing learning, and SERP-guided learning were identified based on five change patterns of retrieval platform switch paths adopted by health information consumers from task 1 to task 2. Health information consumers’ retrieval platform switch based on information usefulness evaluation. And they accessed different amounts and types of health knowledge from different retrieval platforms. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that health information consumers exhibit learning both through retrieval platform switching and the knowledge they consume during the search process. This facilitates the assessment of a certain retrieval platform’s usefulness by measuring the amount and types of health knowledge in each search result. This study also contributes to the enhancement of consumers’ health information retrieval abilities, and to helping optimize health information retrieval platforms by increasing their exposure to consumers and increasing the matching degree between knowledge types and consumer needs.

Online Information Retrieval Systems Trending From Evolutionary to Revolutionary Approach

2019 ◽  
pp. 303-317
Author(s):  
Zahid Ashraf Wani ◽  
Huma Shafiq
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Retrieval Systems ◽  
Diverse Species ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Future ◽  
Information Retrieval Systems ◽  
Information Professionals ◽  
The Web

Nowadays, we all rely on cyberspace for our information needs. We make use of different types of search tools. Some of them have specialization in a specific format or two, while few can crawl a good portion of the web irrespective of formats. Therefore, it is very imperative for information professionals to have thorough understandings of these tools. As such, the chapter is an endeavor to delve deep and highlight various trends in online information retrieval from primitive to modern ones. The chapter also made an effort to envisage the future requirements and expectation keeping in view the ever-increasing dependence on diverse species of information retrieval tools.

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