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Online Health Information Seeking Behavior

In: Social Issues

Submitted By alicedelene
Words 1184
Pages 5
Anita Kennedy October 14th 2013
Literature Review
Test Construction Project
Online Health Information Seeking Behavior The purpose of this literature review is to briefly discuss the existing literature about online health information-seeking behavior. For the purpose of this particular research we will focus on these behaviors by adults only and from the perspective the Health consumer. Other studies have looked at these behaviors in adolescents, who happen to have very different reasons for internet health information seeking than the adult demographic. And some studies have also considered the perspective of the health professional. But I will touch only briefly on this perspective for my research. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (2011), since the introduction of the World Wide Web in the early nineties, there has been a building interest in the internet as a communication tool for health-related information.” Given the overall general lean of society towards technology based mediums for a majority of communication endeavors, this trend towards online health information seeking behavior seems inevitable. This provides a means for the health consumer to be proactive about their health and become more educated about health matters. Ybarra and Suman (2006) found that proactive patients who ask the right questions “may hasten the diagnosis and treatment process.” The primary purpose of my research is to document the prevalence of health information seeking behavior on the internet, as well as outline a demographic consumer profile. But there are certainly other uses or areas of interest. For example, one important use would be ascertaining prospective challenges that physicians and other health professionals might encounter as a result of this new behavior. It undoubtedly changes the dynamics of the patient doctor

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