The Association Between Internet Use and Ambulatory Care-Seeking Behaviors in Taiwan: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

BackgroundCompared with the traditional ways of gaining health-related information from newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, the Internet is inexpensive, accessible, and conveys diverse opinions. Several studies on how increasing Internet use affected outpatient clinic visits were inconclusive.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to examine the role of Internet use on ambulatory care-seeking behaviors as indicated by the number of outpatient clinic visits after adjusting for confounding variables.MethodsWe conducted this study using a sample randomly selected from the general population in Taiwan. To handle the missing data, we built a multivariate logistic regression model for propensity score matching using age and sex as the independent variables. The questionnaires with no missing data were then included in a multivariate linear regression model for examining the association between Internet use and outpatient clinic visits.ResultsWe included a sample of 293 participants who answered the questionnaire with no missing data in the multivariate linear regression model. We found that Internet use was significantly associated with more outpatient clinic visits (P=.04). The participants with chronic diseases tended to make more outpatient clinic visits (P<.01).ConclusionsThe inconsistent quality of health-related information obtained from the Internet may be associated with patients’ increasing need for interpreting and discussing the information with health care professionals, thus resulting in an increasing number of outpatient clinic visits. In addition, the media literacy of Web-based health-related information seekers may also affect their ambulatory care-seeking behaviors, such as outpatient clinic visits.

Association Between a Wider Availability of Health Information and Health Care Utilization in Vietnam: Cross-Sectional Study

“…Mass media sources could potentially play a role in raising awareness about health care services and in shaping the perceptions of health care and related decision-making [ 30 , 31 ]. Similar findings in previous reports provide strong evidence to support this point.…”

“…In 2008, Lee et al [ 1 ] reported that the increasing use of the Internet was correlated with an increase in outpatient clinic visits after controlling for age and sex in a data analysis. Other authors have also elucidated a significant association between use of health information technology and health services use [ 29 , 31 , 32 ]. First, we recognized that the availability of health information in mass media sources has triggered the health care interest of the general population [ 33 ].…”

Gender and age disparity in the initiation of life-supporting treatments: a population-based cohort study

“…We also highlighted the possibility that the media literacy of the audience, i.e. patients, family members, and health care workers, might play an important role on medical decision-making, as well as decision-making to initiate, withhold, or withdraw LSTs [ 35 ]. By further stratifying into different sub-populations, we found that the ECMO use was significantly increased following 2006 in both gender groups and in the adult population.…”

The usage of social media encouraged patients' active participation in medical decision-making: cross-sectional survey (Preprint)

“…Studies have reported that Internet users utilized more ambulatory care [16], and were more likely to change medical decisions [17]. Furthermore, people who used the Internet were more likely to actively participate in medical decision-making than those who did not use the Internet, and people who searched for online health information were more likely to actively participate in medical decision-making than those who did not use the…”

“…Widely available modern information technology has dramatically changed peoples' access to medical information, shifting access from non-interactive and traditional media, such as newspaper, magazine, television, radio and so on, to that of the interactive, web-2.0 internet-based social media such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, LINE and the like. Studies have overwhelmingly pointed out the association between health information in the media [12][13][14] and the usage of medical treatments and interventions, not only in the intensive and critical care medical encounters [15], but also in those of ambulatory care [16].Given that online health information indeed changes people's medical decision-making [17], incorrect online health information can result in a heavy burden in medical encounters …”