Polish employees on the internet as a source of information about health and disease.

BACKGROUND

This paper presents the opinions of Polish employees on how they think of and use the Internet in the context of health, including occupational health. The outcomes show the usefulness of this medium in the ongoing activities regarding health education and promotion in this target group.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The analysis focuses on the empirical data from the first representative research on the working population in Poland, conducted in 2012 among 1012 respondents, using the structured interview method.

RESULTS

Employees believe that the Internet plays a positive role in helping employees stay healthy. They appreciate its importance as a tool to support people with similar health problems and the alternative source of information on health issues. Workers are mostly unhappy with information overload about health and difficulty in identifying the reliable ones. Significant number of employees expect the websites expert control and even perpetrators' punishment. Around half of the workers look for the needed information on the Internet and the same number get acquainted with it, if they come across it by chance. The study shows that there was a small employees' interest regarding data on occupational health hazards, how to counteract them and legal regulations on health at work. If it was a case though, they used the web. Employees expect greater use of the Internet in their workplaces regarding occupational health issues than ever before.

CONCLUSIONS

It was found that there are necessary foundations to treat the Internet as an influencing tool in health education and promotion campaigns aimed at employees.