Abstract
The number of health-related websites has proliferated over the past few years. Health information consumers confront a myriad of health related resources on the internet that have varying levels of quality and are not always easy to comprehend. There is thus a need to help health information consumers to bridge the gap between access to information and information understanding-i.e. to help consumers understand health related web-based resources so that they can act upon it. At the same time health information consumers are becoming not only more involved in their own health care but also more information technology minded. One way to address this issue is to provide consumers with tailored information that is contextualized and personalized e.g. directly relevant and easily comprehensible to the person's own health situation. This paper presents a current trend in Consumer Health Informatics which focuses on theory-based design and development of contextualized and personalized tools to allow the evolving consumer with varying backgrounds and interests to use online health information efficiently. The proposed approach uses a theoretical framework of communication in order to support the consumer's capacity to understand health-related web-based resources.
Highlights
As government agencies, non-profit organizations, and for-profit companies are increasingly providing health information and services online, the internet is becoming an important source of health information for the general public.[1,2,3] consumers of health information on the internet are increasingly being confronted with a myriad of health related resources that have varying levels of quality and are not always easy to comprehend
Health information consumers are becoming more involved in their own health care and more information technology minded. The profile of these evolving consumers is shaped by an increase in the aging population, who are prone to chronic conditions and are in need of more involvement in self-management of their chronic illnesses
This paper presents a current trend in Consumer Health Informatics (CHI), which focuses on theory-based design and development of contextualized and personalized tools to allow the evolving consumer with varying backgrounds and interests to use online health information efficiently
Summary
As government agencies (e.g. the National Institutes of Health, Medicare/Medicaid), non-profit organizations (e.g. medical associations), and for-profit companies are increasingly providing health information and services online, the internet is becoming an important source of health information for the general public.[1,2,3] consumers of health information on the internet are increasingly being confronted with a myriad of health related resources that have varying levels of quality and are not always easy to comprehend. One way to address this issue is to provide consumers with tailored information which is contextualized and personalized e.g. directly relevant and comprehensible to the person’s own health situation. It has become of prime importance to develop Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based tools that can provide tailored information (contextualized and personalized) in order to support the consumer’s capacity to understand health-related web-based resources. Perspective taking is a necessary step for patient’s understanding and needs to be supported by ICT.[54] To address this problem, an approach using a theoretical framework of communication is proposed[54] and the use of dedicated instruments to measure the user’s understanding and the user’s personal cognitive ability. We found that participants bring their own contexts such as social context and psychological context to support their understanding
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