Department of Family Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
School of Journalism & Communication, Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France.
J Med Internet Res. 2022 Jun 24;24(6):e34345. doi: 10.2196/34345.
High-quality online health information (OHI) can reduce unnecessary visits to health professionals and improve health. One of the ways that people use OHI is to support others with health conditions through proxy OHI seeking. Members of a person's social circle may help them overcome information-seeking barriers and illness challenges. There are several models on proxy information seeking. Yet, we know little about the use and outcomes of OHI on behalf of someone else.
The objectives of this paper are to explore and revise a framework on the context and outcomes of proxy OHI seeking.
We conducted a mixed studies literature review integrating qualitative and quantitative evidence with thematic analysis of the findings of 28 studies, followed by framework synthesis incorporating the derived themes.
We explored 4 main themes: (1) characteristics of proxy seekers, (2) context of proxy OHI seeking, (3) use of OHI to provide social support, and (4) outcomes of proxy OHI seeking. Our conceptual framework incorporates these themes and builds on previous work.
By better understanding how people use information together, information providers can adapt the information to meet all users' needs.
高质量的在线健康信息（OHI）可以减少不必要的就医次数，提高健康水平。人们使用 OHI 的一种方式是通过代理 OHI 寻求来支持有健康问题的人。一个人的社交圈成员可以帮助他们克服信息搜索障碍和疾病挑战。有几种代理信息搜索的模式。然而，我们对代表他人使用 OHI 的情况和结果知之甚少。
本文的目的是探讨和修订一个关于代理 OHI 寻求的背景和结果的框架。
我们进行了一项混合研究文献综述，综合了定性和定量证据，并对 28 项研究的结果进行了主题分析，然后进行了框架综合，纳入了得出的主题。
我们探讨了 4 个主要主题：（1）代理搜索者的特征，（2）代理 OHI 寻求的背景，（3）使用 OHI 提供社会支持，（4）代理 OHI 寻求的结果。我们的概念框架包含了这些主题，并建立在前人的工作基础上。
通过更好地了解人们如何共同使用信息，信息提供者可以调整信息以满足所有用户的需求。
