Patient-Provider Communication and Online Health Information Seeking among a Sample of US Older Adults

Negative communications with health professionals are a stressor to older adults in healthcare settings. In this situation, older adults seek health information on the Internet as alternative information sources and may consider this as having the equivalent value of communicating with a health prof...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of health communication 2021-10, Vol.26 (10), p.708-716
Main Authors: Oh, Young Sam, Lim, Jinseop
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Communication
Coping
Health education
Health information
Health promotion
Health risks
Humans
Information Seeking Behavior
Information sources
Internet
Males
Medical personnel
Men
Older people
Patient communication
Professionals
Regression analysis
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Summary:Negative communications with health professionals are a stressor to older adults in healthcare settings. In this situation, older adults seek health information on the Internet as alternative information sources and may consider this as having the equivalent value of communicating with a health professional. This study examines the relationship between communications with health professionals and online health information seeking in older adults. This study used the Health Information National Trends Survey, Cycle 3, and included participants (N = 743) aged 65 or older who used the Internet. A multiple logistic regression was employed to examine the association of health professional communication with online health information seeking. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was applied to examine the association between health communications and three types of online health information seeking in older adults. Online health information seeking was significantly associated with negative communications with health professionals. Health communications only predicted online health information seeking by oneself, and females were more likely to search for health information on the Internet than males. The results of this study show that older adults' online health information seeking is an active coping strategy to reduce health risks and improve health promotion in healthcare.
ISSN:1081-0730
1087-0415
DOI:10.1080/10810730.2021.1998846