Evaluating Consumer Behavior to Identify Significant Factors Influencing Trust in Web-based Health Information

Abstract

Abstract Background: The Internet has been welcomed for its role in enhancing inclusivity and global development; its use by the general population in health has also raised severe challenges. Evaluating the legitimacy of the medical information that may be found on the Internet is generally considered to be one of the most difficult aspects of using the internet. Objective: The purpose of this research is to identify the key criteria that internet users consider when judging the trustworthiness of health information found on the internet. Methods: We carried out an online survey in the form of a questionnaire with the purpose of monitoring the responses of three hundred participants belonging to a variety of age groups, on how they evaluate web-based health information. Their responses are recorded on a Likert scale, then statistically analyzed using exploratory factor analysis. The proposed methodology integrates several techniques - Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin(KMO)&Bartlett's test, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Kaiser's criteria, and oblique rotation to identify significant factors influencing Web-based Health Information (WHI). Results: For the reliability statistics we are getting a Cronbach alpha value of 0.961 for the survey instrument, which shows that the internal consistency among the variable is high. We found that the most essential factors for determining the quality of online health information are credibility (3.80), recommendations (3.33), verification (3.76), and user-friendliness (3.61). Conclusion: According to our results, the factors that were revealed in this research seem to have a significant impact on the level of trust shown by individuals who look for health information online. These factors have the potential to be employed in the development of an automated tool that can determine the level of trust associated with web-based health information in a future study.