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Understanding the Use of Electronic Means to Seek Personal Health Information Among Adults in the United States
In this study, we explored who is most likely to use electronic means to seek health information and why; our research was guided by the Health Belief Model (HBM). We used the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information Trends Survey (HINTS) dataset for 2017 and 2018 (n=6,697). We found that 67.5...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Cureus
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7703714/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33269121 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.11190 |
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author | Alhusseini, Noara Banta, Jim E Oh, Jisoo Montgomery, Susanne |
author_facet | Alhusseini, Noara Banta, Jim E Oh, Jisoo Montgomery, Susanne |
author_sort | Alhusseini, Noara |
collection | PubMed |
description | In this study, we explored who is most likely to use electronic means to seek health information and why; our research was guided by the Health Belief Model (HBM). We used the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information Trends Survey (HINTS) dataset for 2017 and 2018 (n=6,697). We found that 67.5% of US adults used electronic means to seek health information and that females (52.4%), non-Hispanic whites (63.8%), those with at least some college education (76.5%), and those with a household income of at least $50,000 per year (58.3%) were most likely to do so. Respondents reporting depression were 42% more likely to use electronic means to seek health information, suggesting that stigma about mental health may direct people with depression to seek online information to avoid face-to-face communication. Using a tablet to track progress on a health-related goal [odds ratio (OR)=2.38, p<0.0001], and using a tablet to make a decision about treating an illness (OR=6.00, p<0.0001) were highly associated with seeking electronic health information. As the internet remains largely unregulated, this suggests that health systems link their patients to trustworthy resources for preventive and treatment-related information, since many already engage in internet-guided health information-seeking. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7703714 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Cureus |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77037142020-12-01 Understanding the Use of Electronic Means to Seek Personal Health Information Among Adults in the United States Alhusseini, Noara Banta, Jim E Oh, Jisoo Montgomery, Susanne Cureus Medical Education In this study, we explored who is most likely to use electronic means to seek health information and why; our research was guided by the Health Belief Model (HBM). We used the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information Trends Survey (HINTS) dataset for 2017 and 2018 (n=6,697). We found that 67.5% of US adults used electronic means to seek health information and that females (52.4%), non-Hispanic whites (63.8%), those with at least some college education (76.5%), and those with a household income of at least $50,000 per year (58.3%) were most likely to do so. Respondents reporting depression were 42% more likely to use electronic means to seek health information, suggesting that stigma about mental health may direct people with depression to seek online information to avoid face-to-face communication. Using a tablet to track progress on a health-related goal [odds ratio (OR)=2.38, p<0.0001], and using a tablet to make a decision about treating an illness (OR=6.00, p<0.0001) were highly associated with seeking electronic health information. As the internet remains largely unregulated, this suggests that health systems link their patients to trustworthy resources for preventive and treatment-related information, since many already engage in internet-guided health information-seeking. Cureus 2020-10-27 /pmc/articles/PMC7703714/ /pubmed/33269121 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.11190 Text en Copyright © 2020, Alhusseini et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Medical Education Alhusseini, Noara Banta, Jim E Oh, Jisoo Montgomery, Susanne Understanding the Use of Electronic Means to Seek Personal Health Information Among Adults in the United States |
title | Understanding the Use of Electronic Means to Seek Personal Health Information Among Adults in the United States |
title_full | Understanding the Use of Electronic Means to Seek Personal Health Information Among Adults in the United States |
title_fullStr | Understanding the Use of Electronic Means to Seek Personal Health Information Among Adults in the United States |
title_full_unstemmed | Understanding the Use of Electronic Means to Seek Personal Health Information Among Adults in the United States |
title_short | Understanding the Use of Electronic Means to Seek Personal Health Information Among Adults in the United States |
title_sort | understanding the use of electronic means to seek personal health information among adults in the united states |
topic | Medical Education |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7703714/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33269121 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.11190 |
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