Consumer health information needs in China \u2013 a case study of depression based on a Social Q&A community

Wang Zhao,Peixin Lu,Long Lu,Siwei Yu

doi:10.1186/s12911-020-1124-1

Abstract

BackgroundThe social Q&A community quickly becomes a popular platform for consumers to find health information because of its convenience and interactivity.MethodsBased on the 10,861 depression questions collected in the Zhihu, the largest Q&A platform in China, we divided the healthy information needs description into nine categories with Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). We also divided the healthy information needs type into Physiological, affective and cognitive needs based on the Wilson model.ResultsThe results show that the largest categories are depression symptom and social activities while the less concerned health information is prevention and medical insurance. More attention is paid to cognitive needs. We also find there is no strong correlation between attention and needs type.ConclusionsThe purpose of this paper is to refine the consumer health information needs types to better understand the consumer health information characteristic in China.

Highlights

The social Q&A community quickly becomes a popular platform for consumers to find health information because of its convenience and interactivity
Data source: Zhihu According to the 41st “Statistical Report on the Development of China’s Internet Network” released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), until December 2017, the number of users in Zhihu had increase most in social applications, from 7.6 to 14.6%
This paper analyzed the consumer health information needs by taking the depression information in Zhihu as an example

Summary

Introduction

The social Q&A community quickly becomes a popular platform for consumers to find health information because of its convenience and interactivity. Methods: Based on the 10,861 depression questions collected in the Zhihu, the largest Q&A platform in China, we divided the healthy information needs description into nine categories with Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). First source of health information With the rapid development of China’s economy and the implement of “Healthy China” strategy [1], people have paid more and more attention to their own health. Value of user information needs Different from Baidu, Google and other traditional search engines, the question-and-answer web service provides users with a more convenient and specific platform for expressing complex needs. The online community has quickly made the social question and answer service a platform for users to search for relevant information [8].

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Conclusion