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Factors Associated With Perceived Trust of False Abortion Websites: Cross-sectional Online Survey

BACKGROUND: Most patients use the internet to search for health information. While there is a vast repository of searchable information online, much of the content is unregulated and therefore potentially incorrect, conflicting, or confusing. Abortion information online is particularly prone to bein...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chaiken, Sarina Rebecca, Han, Lisa, Darney, Blair G, Han, Leo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8094019/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33871378
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25323
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author Chaiken, Sarina Rebecca
Han, Lisa
Darney, Blair G
Han, Leo
author_facet Chaiken, Sarina Rebecca
Han, Lisa
Darney, Blair G
Han, Leo
author_sort Chaiken, Sarina Rebecca
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Most patients use the internet to search for health information. While there is a vast repository of searchable information online, much of the content is unregulated and therefore potentially incorrect, conflicting, or confusing. Abortion information online is particularly prone to being inaccurate as antichoice websites publish purposefully misleading information in formats that appear as neutral resources. To understand how antichoice websites appear neutral, we need to understand the specific website features of antichoice websites that impart an impression of trustworthiness. OBJECTIVE: We sought to identify the characteristics of false or misleading abortion websites that make these websites appear trustworthy to the public. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. We used validated questionnaires to ask participants to rate 11 antichoice websites and one neutral website identified by experts, focusing on website content, creators, and design. We collected sociodemographic data and participant views on abortion. We used a composite measure of “mean overall trust” as our primary outcome. Using correlation matrices, we determined which website characteristics were most associated with mean overall trust. Finally, we used linear regression to identify participant characteristics associated with overall trust. RESULTS: Our analytic sample included 498 participants aged from 22 to 70 years, and 50.1% (247/493) identified as female. Across 11 antichoice websites, creator confidence (“I believe that the creators of this website are honest and trustworthy”) had the highest correlation coefficient (strongest relationship) with mean overall trust (coefficient=0.70). Professional appearance (coefficient=0.59), look and feel (coefficient=0.59), perception that the information is created by experts (coefficient=0.59), association with a trustworthy organization (coefficient=0.58), valued features and functionalities (coefficient=0.54), and interactive capabilities (coefficient=0.52) all demonstrated strong relationships with mean overall trust. At the individual level, prochoice leaning was associated with higher overall trust of the neutral website (B=−0.43, 95% CI −0.87 to 0.01) and lower mean overall trust of the antichoice websites (B=0.52, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.99). CONCLUSIONS: The mean overall trust of antichoice websites is most associated with design characteristics and perceived trustworthiness of website creators. Those who believe that access to abortion should be limited are more likely to have higher mean overall trust for antichoice websites.
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spelling pubmed-80940192021-05-07 Factors Associated With Perceived Trust of False Abortion Websites: Cross-sectional Online Survey Chaiken, Sarina Rebecca Han, Lisa Darney, Blair G Han, Leo J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Most patients use the internet to search for health information. While there is a vast repository of searchable information online, much of the content is unregulated and therefore potentially incorrect, conflicting, or confusing. Abortion information online is particularly prone to being inaccurate as antichoice websites publish purposefully misleading information in formats that appear as neutral resources. To understand how antichoice websites appear neutral, we need to understand the specific website features of antichoice websites that impart an impression of trustworthiness. OBJECTIVE: We sought to identify the characteristics of false or misleading abortion websites that make these websites appear trustworthy to the public. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. We used validated questionnaires to ask participants to rate 11 antichoice websites and one neutral website identified by experts, focusing on website content, creators, and design. We collected sociodemographic data and participant views on abortion. We used a composite measure of “mean overall trust” as our primary outcome. Using correlation matrices, we determined which website characteristics were most associated with mean overall trust. Finally, we used linear regression to identify participant characteristics associated with overall trust. RESULTS: Our analytic sample included 498 participants aged from 22 to 70 years, and 50.1% (247/493) identified as female. Across 11 antichoice websites, creator confidence (“I believe that the creators of this website are honest and trustworthy”) had the highest correlation coefficient (strongest relationship) with mean overall trust (coefficient=0.70). Professional appearance (coefficient=0.59), look and feel (coefficient=0.59), perception that the information is created by experts (coefficient=0.59), association with a trustworthy organization (coefficient=0.58), valued features and functionalities (coefficient=0.54), and interactive capabilities (coefficient=0.52) all demonstrated strong relationships with mean overall trust. At the individual level, prochoice leaning was associated with higher overall trust of the neutral website (B=−0.43, 95% CI −0.87 to 0.01) and lower mean overall trust of the antichoice websites (B=0.52, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.99). CONCLUSIONS: The mean overall trust of antichoice websites is most associated with design characteristics and perceived trustworthiness of website creators. Those who believe that access to abortion should be limited are more likely to have higher mean overall trust for antichoice websites. JMIR Publications 2021-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8094019/ /pubmed/33871378 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25323 Text en ©Sarina Rebecca Chaiken, Lisa Han, Blair G Darney, Leo Han. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 19.04.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Chaiken, Sarina Rebecca
Han, Lisa
Darney, Blair G
Han, Leo
Factors Associated With Perceived Trust of False Abortion Websites: Cross-sectional Online Survey
title Factors Associated With Perceived Trust of False Abortion Websites: Cross-sectional Online Survey
title_full Factors Associated With Perceived Trust of False Abortion Websites: Cross-sectional Online Survey
title_fullStr Factors Associated With Perceived Trust of False Abortion Websites: Cross-sectional Online Survey
title_full_unstemmed Factors Associated With Perceived Trust of False Abortion Websites: Cross-sectional Online Survey
title_short Factors Associated With Perceived Trust of False Abortion Websites: Cross-sectional Online Survey
title_sort factors associated with perceived trust of false abortion websites: cross-sectional online survey
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8094019/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33871378
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25323
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