Online health information search: what struggles and empowers the users? Results of an online survey.
Stud Health Technol Inform
; 180: 843-7, 2012.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-22874311
ABSTRACT
The most popular mean of searching for online health content is a general search engine for all domains of interest. Being general implies on one hand that the search engine is not tailored to the needs which are particular to the medical and on another hand that health domain and health-specific queries may not always return adequate and adapted results. The aim of our study was to identify difficulties and preferences in online health information search encountered by members of the general public. The survey in four languages was online from the 9th of March until the 27th of April, 2011. 385 answers were collected, representing mostly the opinions of highly educated users, mostly from France and Spain. The most important characteristics of a search engine are relevance and trustworthiness of results. The results currently retrieved do not fulfil these requirements. The ideal representation of the information will be a categorization of the results into different groups. Medical dictionaries/thesauruses, suggested relevant topics, image searches and spelling corrections are regarded as helpful tools. There is a need to work towards better customized solutions which provide users with the trustworthy information of high quality specific to his/her case in a user-friendly environment which would eventually lead to making appropriate health decisions.
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Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Contexto en salud:
1_ASSA2030
Problema de salud:
1_sistemas_informacao_saude
Asunto principal:
Almacenamiento y Recuperación de la Información
/
Comportamiento del Consumidor
/
Evaluación de Necesidades
/
Internet
/
Motor de Búsqueda
/
Sistemas de Información en Salud
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
País/Región como asunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Stud Health Technol Inform
Asunto de la revista:
INFORMATICA MEDICA
/
PESQUISA EM SERVICOS DE SAUDE
Año:
2012
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Suiza