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First published August 6, 2004 as JAMIA PrePrint; doi:10.1197/jamia.M1460
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2004;11(6):499-504
© 2004 American Medical Informatics Association

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Submitted on September 16, 2003
Accepted on June 30, 2004

Patient Internet Use for Health Information at Three Urban Primary Care Clinics

Suzanne Dickerson DNS, RN1, Amber M. Reinhart MA2, Thomas Hugh Feeley PhD3*, Rakesh Bidani MD4, Ellen Rich MD4, Vinod K. Garg MD4, and Charles O. Hershey MD4

Affiliation of the authors: 1 School of Nursing, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY; 2 School of Informatics, Department of Communication, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY; 3 School of Informatics, Department of Communication and School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY; 4 School of Medicine, Department of General Internal Medicine, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Objective To survey a cross-section of patients presenting to three urban primary care clinics to understand online health information search behaviors.

Design and Analysis 315 patients were interviewed at three urban primary care clinics affiliated with University at Buffalo, School of Medicine. Interview questions included items on education, demographic information, employment, number of current prescriptions, insurance, online access, and specifics of health searching behaviors. Chart review determined patient BMI index and number of chronic illnesses. Logistic regression and chi-square statistics were used to investigate the relationship between patient characteristics and proportion of patients who use Web for health information-seeking.

Results Approximately 53% of respondents reported using Web or email in the last year and 68% (33% of total sample) of those who access the Web used it to search for health information. The two most commonly cited search areas included information about a physical illness and nutrition/fitness. Education and race significantly predicted online health seeking behavior when considering all factors in the study. Many patients (22%) relied on friends and family to navigate the Web and 45% of patients reported that the information they sought was unrelated to their clinical visit.

Conclusion Current use of the Internet for health information was limited among more disadvantaged patient groups. More research is needed to examine the relationship between health-seeking behavior and patients' management of their health and well-being.




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