Department of Journalism, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University.
Department of Communication Studies, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University.
Health Commun. 2021 Sep;36(10):1163-1175. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2020.1748829. Epub 2020 Apr 14.
Online health information, as an emerging field in health communication research, has attracted close attention from researchers. To identify major determinants of why individuals seek health information online, we conducted a meta-analysis that systematically accumulates the existing research findings. To that end, by integrating three theories or models for examining information-seeking behavior, we developed a theoretical framework for the current meta-analysis that emphasizing psychosocial, instrumental, contextual, and demographic factors. By analyzing the effect sizes from 44 articles representing 54 empirical samples, we found that the quality, trustworthiness, and utility of online health information were the dominant predictors of seeking it and that instrumental factors were more important than psychological ones in determining whether individuals did so. Moreover, the development of information and communication technology, the sampling method, and the type of information sought significantly moderated pairwise relationships between determinants and seeking behavior, whereas culture did not. Herein, we discuss the theoretical implications of our findings as well as directions for future research.
在线健康信息作为健康传播研究中的一个新兴领域，引起了研究人员的密切关注。为了确定个体为什么会在线寻求健康信息的主要决定因素，我们进行了一项元分析，系统地积累了现有研究成果。为此，我们通过整合三个用于考察信息寻求行为的理论或模型，为当前的元分析制定了一个理论框架，强调心理社会、工具、情境和人口统计学因素。通过分析代表 54 个实证样本的 44 篇文章的效应量，我们发现，在线健康信息的质量、可信度和实用性是寻求它的主要预测因素，而工具因素在决定个体是否这样做方面比心理因素更为重要。此外，信息和通信技术的发展、抽样方法和所寻求信息的类型显著调节了决定因素与寻求行为之间的成对关系，而文化没有。在此，我们讨论了我们研究结果的理论意义以及未来研究的方向。
