ArticleJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA
Consumer health information seeking as hypothesis testing.
Article in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Web Use for Symptom Appraisal of Physical Health Conditions: A Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Pooled it
- Healthy or not? The impact of conflicting health-related information on attentional resources.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2022Trial
- Patients' Use of the Internet to Find Reliable Medical Information About Minor Ailments: Vignette-Based Experimental Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Trial
- Consumer Health Information: A Narrative Review.Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran · 2026Review
- Improvements in competition performance of national-level track and field athletes following a personalized nutrition intervention: a mixed methods approach.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2025Article
- How Patients With Cancer Use the Internet to Search for Health Information: Scenario-Based Think-Aloud Study.JMIR infodemiology · 2025Article
- The Emerging Role of Large Language Models in Improving Prostate Cancer Literacy.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The Effect of Monetary Incentives on Health Care Social Media Content: Study Based on Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
- Health Information Sourcing and Health Knowledge Quality: Repeated Cross-sectional Survey.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- Online Medical Misinformation in Cancer: Distinguishing Fact From Fiction.JCO oncology practice · 2022Review
- Self-Medication with Drotaverine among Patients with Common Abdominal Symptoms and Treatment Efficacy from the Perspectives of Patients and General Practitioners-An Observational, Retrospective, Cross-Sectional Study Using Real-World Data.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Biased Sampling and Causal Estimation of Health-Related Information: Laboratory-Based Experimental Research.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Article
- Search engines, cognitive biases and the man-computer interaction: a theoretical framework for empirical researches about cognitive biases in online search on health-related topics.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2020Article
- Online Information-Seeking About Potential Breast Cancer Symptoms: Capturing Online Behavior With an Internet Browsing Tracking Tool.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- The Role of Web-Based Health Information in Help-Seeking Behavior Prior to a Diagnosis of Lung Cancer: A Mixed-Methods Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Article
- Conflicting health information: a critical research need.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2016Article
- Making Quality Health Websites a National Public Health Priority: Toward Quality Standards.Journal of medical Internet research · 2016Article
- Designing Health Websites Based on Users' Web-Based Information-Seeking Behaviors: A Mixed-Method Observational Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2016Observational
- Manipulating Google's Knowledge Graph Box to Counter Biased Information Processing During an Online Search on Vaccination: Application of a Technological Debiasing Strategy.Journal of medical Internet research · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveDespite the proliferation of consumer health sites, lay individuals often experience difficulty finding health information online. The present study attempts to understand users' information seeking difficulties by drawing on a hypothesis testing explanatory framework. It also addresses the role of user competencies and their interaction with internet resources.
designTwenty participants were interviewed about their understanding of a hypothetical scenario about a family member suffering from stable angina and then searched MedlinePlus consumer health information portal for information on the problem presented in the scenario. Participants' understanding of heart disease was analyzed via semantic analysis. Thematic coding was used to describe information seeking trajectories in terms of three key strategies: verification of the primary hypothesis, narrowing search within the general hypothesis area and bottom-up search.
resultsCompared to an expert model, participants' understanding of heart disease involved different key concepts, which were also differently grouped and defined. This understanding provided the framework for search-guiding hypotheses and results interpretation. Incorrect or imprecise domain knowledge led individuals to search for information on irrelevant sites, often seeking out data to confirm their incorrect initial hypotheses. Online search skills enhanced search efficiency, but did not eliminate these difficulties.
conclusionsRegardless of their web experience and general search skills, lay individuals may experience difficulty with health information searches. These difficulties may be related to formulating and evaluating hypotheses that are rooted in their domain knowledge. Informatics can provide support at the levels of health information portals, individual websites, and consumer education tools.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.