What Triggers Health Information Search: An Explorative Analysis on the Information Needs, Situations, Technologies, and Habits in Health Information Search Across the Lifespan

Given the access to online health information is no longer a problem, continuous growth in health information seeking has been observed. The goal of the study was to explore the triggers, information needs, contemporary technologies and habits of health information search behavior across the lifespan. The population who seeks online health information has increased stably for two decades (Diaz et al., 2002, Tennant et al., 2015). In addition to its prevalence, online health information plays an important role in patient decision-making. Almost half of people who searched for health information online reported that it influenced the way they think about health factors, and more than one third of them said it influenced their decision to see a doctor, or how they managed chronic conditions (Pew Internet Research, 2013). While earlier studies have explored the triggers of online health information seeking (e.g., Flynn, Smith & Freese, 2006), health information seeking behavior may be evolved with the development of new technologies. To explore the triggers of health information seeking across the lifespan, 69 older (mean age = 63.94, 35 female) and 67 younger (mean age = 35.21, 31 female) adults were recruited to a survey study. We found that there was no age difference in the reliance on health information sources. Physicians and the Internet remained the dominant sources of health information, followed by family, friends and pharmacists. Regarding information seeking habits, there was no age difference in the overall frequencies of online health information search despite the fact that more older adults checked health information online daily. Checking medication information was the dominant reason to trigger both younger and older adults to go online, followed by searching online after doctors’ visits, and making treatment decisions. There was also a trend that older users were more likely to go online when they heard about a new or unknown health information compared to younger users. Further, we explored the information needs of online health information search. While older adults were more likely to search for learning new information than younger adults, more younger adults looked up online health information for confirming or clarifying known health information. Taking advantage of social health information, about one half of younger and older adults shared health information online with their family and friends, and went online for checking review comments of medications, healthcare providers, etc. from their peer patients. Further, while desktop computers remained the most used technology for online health information search, an age difference was found in the usage of tablets and smartphones. Older adults used the tablets to do online health information searches more than younger adults; while younger people used the smart phones to do online health information searches more than older people. Overall, we found increasing importance of online health information for adults across the lifespan, especially for older adults who tended to use online information for acquiring new knowledge about health topics. The triggers of online health information seeking were also not only bounded to doctors’ visits but also related to daily health information needs (such as checking medications). Interestingly, the use of tablets for online health information search among older adults could be associated with the perceived ease of use of tablets among older users (portability, bigger font size and the accessibility of interactions) (Jayroe & Wolfram, 2012). As Pew Internet (2017) suggested that over a third of seniors own tablets, when designing elderly-accessible health websites, tailoring the presentation of health information to different media (including tablets) needs to be considered.