Consumer health information needs: A systematic review of measures

Abstract

Information needs motivate human information behavior. Knowledge of information needs is critical for user-centered information behavior research and system design. In consumer health information behavior research, there is a lack of understanding of how consumer health information needs (CHIN) is measured in empirical studies. This study is a systematic review of empirical quantitative studies on CHIN, with a focus on how CHIN is defined and operationalized. A search of six academic databases and citation-track of relevant articles identified a total of 216 relevant articles. These articles were analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method. We found that few included articles explicitly defined either CHIN or information needs in general. When definitions were given, they were from a cognitive perspective and largely ignored the multidimensionality of the concept. Consistent with this cognitive-centered conceptualization, CHIN was operationalized primarily as information topics, with some articles also measuring several additional attributes, including level of importance, fulfilment, amount of information needed, and frequency of needs. These findings suggest that CHIN is undertheorized. To address this gap, future studies should attend to social and emotional dimensions of CHIN, such as motivations, goals, activities, and emotions. Further, more research is needed to understand how CHIN is related to consumer health information seeking behavior and to the social and environmental context in which the needs arise.