Li Fan, Li Min, Guan Peng, Ma Shuang, Cui Lei
Department of Medical Informatics, China Medical University, Shenyang, China.
J Med Internet Res. 2015 Mar 25;17(3):e81. doi: 10.2196/jmir.3326.
The Internet has become an established source of health information for people seeking health information. In recent years, research on the health information seeking behavior of Internet users has become an increasingly important scholarly focus. However, there have been no long-term bibliometric studies to date on Internet health information seeking behavior.
The purpose of this study was to map publication trends and explore research hot spots of Internet health information seeking behavior.
A bibliometric analysis based on PubMed was conducted to investigate the publication trends of research on Internet health information seeking behavior. For the included publications, the annual publication number, the distribution of countries, authors, languages, journals, and annual distribution of highly frequent major MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms were determined. Furthermore, co-word biclustering analysis of highly frequent major MeSH terms was utilized to detect the hot spots in this field.
A total of 533 publications were included. The research output was gradually increasing. There were five authors who published four or more articles individually. A total of 271 included publications (50.8%) were written by authors from the United States, and 516 of the 533 articles (96.8%) were published in English. The eight most active journals published 34.1% (182/533) of the publications on this topic. Ten research hot spots were found: (1) behavior of Internet health information seeking about HIV infection or sexually transmitted diseases, (2) Internet health information seeking behavior of students, (3) behavior of Internet health information seeking via mobile phone and its apps, (4) physicians' utilization of Internet medical resources, (5) utilization of social media by parents, (6) Internet health information seeking behavior of patients with cancer (mainly breast cancer), (7) trust in or satisfaction with Web-based health information by consumers, (8) interaction between Internet utilization and physician-patient communication or relationship, (9) preference and computer literacy of people using search engines or other Web-based systems, and (10) attitude of people (especially adolescents) when seeking health information via the Internet.
The 10 major research hot spots could provide some hints for researchers when launching new projects. The output of research on Internet health information seeking behavior is gradually increasing. Compared to the United States, the relatively small number of publications indexed by PubMed from other developed and developing countries indicates to some extent that the field might be still underdeveloped in many countries. More studies on Internet health information seeking behavior could give some references for health information providers.
互联网已成为寻求健康信息的人们获取健康信息的既定来源。近年来，对互联网用户健康信息寻求行为的研究已成为日益重要的学术焦点。然而，迄今为止，尚未有关于互联网健康信息寻求行为的长期文献计量学研究。
本研究旨在描绘互联网健康信息寻求行为的出版趋势并探索研究热点。
基于PubMed进行文献计量分析，以调查互联网健康信息寻求行为研究的出版趋势。对于纳入的出版物，确定年度出版数量、国家、作者、语言、期刊的分布，以及高频主要医学主题词（MeSH）的年度分布。此外，利用高频主要MeSH词的共词双聚类分析来检测该领域的热点。
共纳入533篇出版物。研究产出逐渐增加。有五位作者各自发表了四篇或更多文章。总共271篇纳入出版物（50.8%）由来自美国的作者撰写，533篇文章中的516篇（96.8%）以英文发表。八个最活跃的期刊发表了关于该主题的34.1%（182/533）的出版物。发现了十个研究热点：（1）关于艾滋病毒感染或性传播疾病的互联网健康信息寻求行为，（2）学生的互联网健康信息寻求行为，（3）通过手机及其应用程序的互联网健康信息寻求行为，（4）医生对互联网医疗资源的利用，（5）家长对社交媒体的利用，（6）癌症患者（主要是乳腺癌患者）的互联网健康信息寻求行为，（7）消费者对基于网络的健康信息的信任或满意度，（8）互联网使用与医患沟通或关系之间的相互作用，（9）使用搜索引擎或其他基于网络的系统的人们的偏好和计算机素养，以及（10）人们（尤其是青少年）通过互联网寻求健康信息时的态度。
这十个主要研究热点可为研究人员开展新项目时提供一些启示。互联网健康信息寻求行为的研究产出正在逐渐增加。与美国相比，其他发达国家和发展中国家被PubMed索引的出版物数量相对较少，这在一定程度上表明该领域在许多国家可能仍不发达。更多关于互联网健康信息寻求行为的研究可为健康信息提供者提供一些参考。
