Consumer Satisfaction with Online Health Information: A Theoretical Model and an Empirical Study

Abstract

<p>The Internet has enabled consumers to become more proactive in managing their health by accessing information published online. Studies of this phenomenon have indicated that a large percentage of the population is now utilizing information found on the Internet to educate themselves and to make and reinforce decisions about medications, treatments and lifestyle choices for themselves and others. This research examines the area of Online Consumer Health Information Retrieval as: "a field of study that pertains to consumers' use of the Internet to locate and evaluate health related information, for the purposes of self education and collection of facts to enable informed decision making." Prior studies in this area have largely focused around the issue of quality of health information found online from the perspective of researchers and physicians. Consequently, many of these studies have been prescriptive in nature, suggesting to consumers of online health information how they should evaluate quality of health information Websites. It is necessary to examine how consumers assess the credibility and validity of such information themselves, taking into account their own perceptions of both the quality of Websites and quality of the information found on these sites, as well as the relationship with their beliefs of trust worthiness of Websites and their authors. A research model exploring the antecedents of consumer satisfaction with online health information is proposed using an IS research methodology. By synthesizing related research on the constructs of quality, trust and satisfaction, a proposed second order model is developed. This proposed model for consumer satisfaction with online health information is quantitatively validated using structural equation modeling techniques. The findings of this research provide evidence that content quality, technical adequacy and trust beliefs explain a large proportion of the variance in satisfaction with online health information retrieval for consumers.</p>