Health information seeking in the digital age: An analysis of health information seeking behavior among US adults

Abstract

Background: Given the increasing availability of internet, it has become a common source of health information for all population including students. However, the actual effect of this increased access to information on the health status and its different aspects needs to be studied more. This study aimed to investigate the correlations between online health information seeking behavior and health related quality of life in a sample of high school students of Iran. Methods: A survey was conducted among secondary school girl students of Yazd province, Iran in 2019. A total of 295 students participated in the study. The required data were gathered using two valid questionnaires including eHIQ (Kelly et al., 2015) to measure the online health information seeking experience and validated Persian version of SF-36 to measure the health related quality of life. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient using SPSS version 23. Results: The mean score of eHIQ was 2.71±0.71. Mean scores for physical component summary and mental component summary of SF-36 were 72.90±16.20 and 63.19±22.26, respectively. eHIQ score showed no statistical correlations with physical component summary (P=.46) and mental component summary (P=.53). Conclusion: The findings suggest that seeking online health information does not improve the health related quality of life. The possible causes are discussed but this finding should be studied more. Background Adolescence refers to the age range of 10 to19 years [1]. It is generally supposed that this period is an appropriate time to maintain and promote health and prevent health-related adverse effects in the following decades of life [2]. Despite this potential, adolescents have special needs that are often not well met by health systems [3]. Evidence suggests that many high-risk behaviors that usually begin in adolescence cause an epidemic of non-communicable diseases in adulthood [4]; an 18-year prospective study has showed that physical activity in adolescence had a significant effect on one's health in adulthood [5]. Today, adolescents are facing multiple health-threatening factors, various questions on different aspects of health and more complicated health challenges and problems

The impact of news exposure on collective attention in the United States during the 2016 Zika epidemic

“…The advent of the digital era has radically changed the way individuals search for information and this is particularly relevant for health-related information [1]. A 2013 study [2] found that 59% of U.S. adults had looked for health information on the Web in the previous year and that about one in three U.S. adults use the Internet to figure out what medical condition they have.…”

Trends of infodemiology studies: a scoping review

“…The Internet has changed the ways in which people search for health information. Some studies have shown that 177 million Americans use social media platforms and Internet queries to determine their medical condition or that of others (Casey, ; Jacobs, Amuta & Jeon, ). Recently, social media and other Web based data sources have been used to spread awareness on the outbreak of diseases (Brownstein, Freifeld, Reis & Mandl, ; Paul & Drezde, ; Signorini, Segre & Polgreen, ).…”

Health-related internet use among opioid treatment patients

“…For example, a large survey of California residents, (Nguyen, Mosadeghi, & Almario, 2017) found evidence of digital disparities in online health information seeking: Elderly, racial/ethnic minority, non-English speaking, and less educated individuals were less likely to ever use the Internet or to engage in online health information seeking. Inequalities in health information seeking have also been documented by others showing that that younger people, those with higher socioeconomic status, higher level of education, and higher Internet skills are more likely to report the use of online sources for health information (Jacobs, Amuto, & Jeon, 2017). In addition to limited Internet access, socioeconomically disadvantaged populations seeking online health information experience other barriers to information gathering such as connectivity problems and frustration during health information searches (McCloud, Okechukwu, Sorensen, & Viswanath, 2016).…”