Transcript How do people look for health information?

“In sickness & in health”
How do people look
for health information?
SHINE Study Day.
March 2009
Looking for health information
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80% of people are
likely to seek out
information to learn
how to cope with
health problems
Ellins and Coulter: How engaged are
people in their healthcare?
Information needs
 Information sources and preferences
 Health on the internet
 How do people judge health websites?
 How can libraries help?
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Information needs & information
seeking: a body of evidence
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3.
Health literacy: being able to make the
most of health by Sihota and Lennard.
National Consumer Council 2004
Accessing information about health and
social services by Danielle Swain et al.
Assessing the quality of information to
support people in making decisions
about their health and healthcare by
Angela Coulter et al.
Recall is “strikingly small”
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40-80% of medical
information provided
by healthcare
practitioners is
forgotten immediately
The need: People are different
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Require information
for different purposes
At different
times/points in their
journey
Broad range of
information
preferences
Patients may wish to find out about:
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Diagnosis
Tests and treatment
Prognosis
Services; including
options & alternatives
Self-care
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Further information –
inc self-help groups
Information about
other sources of
information
Information for people
close to them
Common information needs
Voluntary groups
 Support for family or carers
 Services for specific conditions
 Benefits
 How to comment or complain
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Timing
People want information just after
diagnosis/taking on a caring role
 People have difficulty assimilating
information in the early stages of disease
 Not everyone wants further information at
all stages of an illness
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Information source
Internet/website
Leaflets or books
Leaflets
Books
Family and friends
Newspapers/magazines
Pharmacist
Patient organisations
Television or radio
Advertisements
Library
National survey
30%
23%
Wrexham
54%
42%
27%
19%
18%
6%
4%
35%
25%
58%
4%
1%
11%
Information sources & preferences
The ideal information source
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Accurate, up to date, reliable - and practically useful
Accessible in language, format, and tone
Capable of customisation or personalisation
Available at different levels of detail
Informative about conditions as well as treatments
Covering beneficial & adverse effects of treatment
Linked to other reliable sources of information
Available at the time of a consultation
Finding out about services
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Significant amount of information available
Not well signposted
Service users left to dig it out for themselves
Lack of co-ordination between information providers
Websites hold useful information; some are poorly
designed
Telephone services friendly; may not lead to useful
information
Both telephone lines and websites need to update their
information regularly
Health on the internet
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70,000 + health related sites
Young people find the internet an appealing source
Yet for many patients, including “hard to reach groups”:
 No familiarity with computers at all
 Living in poverty
21st century living
57% population
spend 5+ hrs per
week online
 preferred method
of communication
is face-to-face.
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21st century living
16 million households in Great Britain.65%
 Increase of just over 1 million households
(7 %) since 2007
 South East highest level of access, 74%
 North East the lowest access. 54%
 Most likely to have home access- adults
under 70 with a degree or equivalent. 93%
 Least likely – those with no formal
qualifications. 56%
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Top three health issues
1.
Women’s health
2.
Alternative health
3.
Diet
... possibly the country's largest
ever health snapshot
Searches of NHS Direct. 2006
 Chickenpox
111,800
 Pregnancy
108,600
 Thrush
90,000
 Diabetes
83,000
 Irritable bowel syndrome
70,400
Public favourites
MensHealth.co.uk
Most popular body & mind site
 CancerResearchUk.org
Best non-profit UK website
 Womens-Health.co.uk
Best mind and body site
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For good or ill?
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“The current evidence suggests that actual
harm has been negligible to date, and over
time benefits on a population basis could
be substantial”
Baur and Deering.
Journal of Medical Internet Research 2001
How do people judge health
websites?
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Rapid search: rejecting those that are
unattractive – with adverts – too general
Later influenced by credibility and
perceived impartiality
Place particular trust in sites that closely
reflect their own values
Winning trust
Ease of access to relevant information
 Personalisation and social identity – input
from other people with similar
backgrounds/concerns
 Credibility through impartiality
 Credibility through professional design
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Kitemarking
New Information
Accreditation Scheme
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Reliability
Easier to find quality
information
Quality improvement
Empowerment
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Trust and reputation
Who produced the site
Purpose of the site
Funding sources
Date
How the information is written
Descriptions of conditions and
treatments
Medical research
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Personal
experiences
Foreign sites
Communication
Links
Disclaimers
Kite marks
Design
Interactive facilities
Internet vs traditional sources
More traditional information sources, such
as books and pamphlets
“would probably be no better than those of
the webs pages”
when assessed against the standards of
evidence-based patient information
How can libraries help?
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The Public Library service has a
major role to play in supporting
patients to access information
about their choice of hospital,
probably in conjunction with local
voluntary sector groups who can
support very disadvantaged
groups such as those whose first
language is not English
http://www.chooseandbook.nhs.uk/patients
The importance of equitable access
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“Variation in access to information is
ultimately disempowering: it reduces
people’s ability to act promptly, and it
erodes self-confidence and access to
services impacting negatively on health.”
Sihota and Lennard
Library users
Information need
Rotherham
survey
Location and opening hours of local health 63%
services
Sources of support for carers
57%
Diet, nutrition, exercise
54%
Common conditions, diseases and their 54%
treatments
Local travel arrangements
52%
Information about the performance of NHS 52%
services
How can librarians help?
Public librarians are well placed to act as
community navigators for patients, using
approaches targeted to their local
communities
 Health librarians have specialist
knowledge to assist public library
colleagues to handle queries outside their
area of expertise
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Issues for library staff?
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The internet may be seen to
make reference work less
difficult
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Perhaps some tensions
amongst librarians:
- providing reference services?
- promoting self-service?
Looking ahead – the opportunity
How best to extend the role of librarians in
delivering high quality health information?