The presentation of health-related search results and its impact on negative emotional outcomes

Abstract

Searching for health information online has become increasingly common, yet few studies have examined potential negative emotional effects of online health information search. We present results from an experiment manipulating the presentation of search results for common symptoms, which shows that the frequency and placement of serious illness mentions within results can influence perceptions of symptom severity and susceptibility of having the serious illness, respectively. The increase in severity and susceptibility can then lead to higher levels of negative emotional outcomes experienced-including feeling overwhelmed and frightened. Interestingly, health literacy can help reduce perceived symptom severity, and high online health experience actually increases the likelihood that individuals use a frequency-based heuristic. Technological implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Digital Divide 2.0: The Role of Social Networking Sites in Seeking Health Information Online From a Longitudinal Perspective

“…However, peers who are unprofessional can give false information that may potentially lead people to make unwise decisions (Eastin, 2001). Moreover, peers' replies and discussions that frequently mention the seriousness of a disease or health problem without providing proper treatment tips may cause people (especially those of low of health literacy) to feel overwhelmed and frightened (Lauckner & Hsieh, 2013). Therefore, it is suggested that health professionals should review online sites and recommend credible ones to people; also, health professionals may need to provide tips for people (especially those of lower health literacy) to process online health information in a proper way.…”

Relationships between cyberchondria and obsessive-compulsive symptom dimensions

“…Current theories suggest that individuals who seek online health-related information either experience a decrease or increase in anxiety in response to these searches (see Starcevic and Berle, 2013, for a review). In fact, studies have demonstrated that after reviewing health information online some individuals feel more empowered about their personal health (Lemire et al, 2008), whereas other individuals feel frightened and overwhelmed (Lauckner and Hsieh, 2013). Those who experience an increase in anxiety following online medical information seeking may avoid further anxiety-provoking medical information or attempt to seek reassurance through continued medical information searches.…”

Captions and biases in diagnostic search

“…In a recent study by Lauckner and Hsieh [2013] on health search, SERPs generated in response to searches on symptoms were modified manually and tasks were sent to over 300 remote participants. The authors showed that the presence of serious illnesses at the start of the SERP, and in high frequency throughout the SERP, lead to increased perceptions of threat and resulted in negative emotions.…”

“…In addition, approximately 25% of Web searchers have reported interpreting the ranked ordering of search results returned in symptom searches as an ordering of diseases by occurrence likelihood [White and Horvitz 2009a]. However, search engine ranking algorithms can exhibit biases in the information that they cover [Gerhart 2004;Vaughan and Thelwall 2004;Goldman 2006] and how they choose to order their results Kawaguchi 2002a, 2002b], have limited access to information about a searcher's situation and background probabilities on conditions, and the trust that people place in search engine rankings can lead to erroneous beliefs and negative emotional outcomes [Lauckner and Hsieh 2013].…”