Abstract
Internet health information is used by patients for health care decision making. Research indicates this information is not necessarily disclosed in interactions with health professionals. This study investigated primary health care nurses’ engagement with patient online health information use along with the respondents’ disclosure of online sources to their personal health care provider. A questionnaire was posted to a random sample of 1,000 New Zealand nurses with 630 responses. Half the respondents assessed patients’ online use ( n = 324) and had encountered patients who had wrongly interpreted information. Health information quality evaluation activities with patients indicated the need for nursing information literacy skills. A majority of respondents (71%, n = 443) used online sources for personal health information needs; 36.3% ( n = 155) of the respondents using online sources did not tell their personal health care provider about information obtained. This study identifies that there are gaps in supporting patient use but more nursing engagement with online sources when compared with earlier studies.
Highlights
Internet health information is an important education resource commonly sought by patients to support their health care decision making
More primary health care (PHC) nurses (61.2%) were involved in patient discussions about online information several times a month or more compared with medical ward nurses (30.7%), asked their patients if they accessed online information (52.8% compared with 24.4% of medical nurses), and helped patients evaluate its quality (46.9% compared with 24.9% of medical nurses)
Online information is used by the public for self-diagnosis of health issues and to supplement information provided by health professionals
Summary
Internet health information is an important education resource commonly sought by patients to support their health care decision making. New Zealand studies have traced broader nursing engagement with a notable feature being the minority of respondents who assessed patients’ use of online information (37% of postgraduate nursing respondents [Gilmour, Scott, & Huntington, 2008], 11% of undergraduate nursing respondents [Scott, Gilmour, & Felden, 2008], and 24.4% of nursing respondents working in medical wards [Gilmour, Huntington, Broadbent, Strong, & Hawkins, 2012]). These studies consistently found that a very small minority of the nurses in the study settings worked to develop patients’ information evaluation skills
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