[Construction and operation of Internet Search Engine specialized in information on asthma. A Search Engine-based investigation to identify asthma-related information needed by Internet users].

To support asthmatic patients in collecting information through the Internet, we have constructed and operated a search engine specialized in asthma-related information making use of the search engine software available free of charge and other programs. A questionnaire was attached to the bottom of the Web page presenting the search results, asking the users to respond to several questions. During the three-year period since its start of operation on June 1, 2000, there was 66689 visits to this site and 786 responses to the questionnaire were collected. Of all respondents, 19.3% were medical professionals, 63.7% were patients or their family members, and 11.3% belonged to the other categories (5.3% did not specify their position). In each of these three user groups, only about half of the users were able to find a route to the information they needed. This seems to reflect the absence of adequate asthma-related information sources on the Internet in Japanese language. However, more than 70% of all users in each group answered that this search engine site was useful.