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This paper argues that while there have been significant advances in the development of consumer health information services over the past decade, there is no room for complacency as we approach the new millennium. If we are to avoid the dangers of complacency, passivity and superficiality we need to develop new skills. The future consumer health information professional will need to be skilled in creating information products, interpreting information needs and reviewing and synthesizing information to support decision making.

Hedonic social applications have been increasingly popular among health information consumers. However, it remains unclear what motivates consumers to adopt health information in hedonic applications when they have alternative choices of more formal health information sources. Building on the self-determination theory and the affordances lens, this study aims to investigate how different affordances on hedonic social applications affect consumers' basic psychological needs and further influence their intention to adopt health information on such applications.

As TikTok demonstrated great potential in disseminating health information, we developed a model that we analyze using the PLS-SEM technique with data collected from a valid research sample of 384 respondents with health information seeking or encountering experience in TikTok.

The results suggested that health information adoption in hedonic social applications is significantly predicted by the satisfaction of consumers' basic psychological needs, namely autonomy, relatedness and competence. Moreover, the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is positively affected by affordances provided by the hedonic social applications. The hedonic affordances positively influence autonomy satisfaction, while the connective affordances positively affect relatedness satisfaction, and the utilitarian affordances positively support competence satisfaction.

The study indicates that hedonic social applications such as TikTok could be an important channel for consumers to access and adopt health information. The study contributes to the literature by proposing a theoretical model that explains consumers' health information adoption and yields practical implications for designers and service providers of hedonic social applications.

This study aims to examine the relationships between consumer self‐confidence in health information search and health‐related outcomes (i.e. knowledge about cancer prevention, healthcare behavior, and use of the web as a primary source for health information). The associations between self‐confidence in health information search and its predictors (i.e. health literacy and trust in health information sources) are explored as well.

This study used the 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey data. Stepwise linear regression analyses, a logistic regression analysis, and stepwise multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

The results from this study revealed that consumer self‐confidence in health information search appears to be linked with perceptions of health literacy and trust in information sources, particularly, trust in health professionals (e.g. doctors, healthcare professionals, government health agencies, family and friends, the internet), but not in information‐focused media (newspapers or magazines). Furthermore, as expected, consumer self‐confidence in health information search determines two health‐related outcomes, which are knowledge about cancer prevention and healthcare behavior.

The results of this study provide researchers with a better understanding about the key factors guiding consumers to have informed healthcare and enabling public health agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of their policies.

Although the health information seeking behavior of consumers through the internet has received great attention, limited attempt has been made to integrate both the health information seeking behavior and the usage behavior in a mobile online context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that influence consumer mobile health information seeking (MHIS) and usage behavior based on information quality, perceived value, personal health value, and trust.

A survey was conducted to collect data. A two-step approach of structure equation modeling based was used to test the measurement model and hypothesis model.

Information quality, perceived value, and trust were found to have positive effects on both the intention to seek and to use health information, and that the intention to seek affects the intention to use. Among the three components of perceived value, the utilitarian and epistemic values were found to have significant effects on intention to seek. In addition, the current health status of health consumers moderates the relationships between MHIS and usage intention and their determinants.

Studies have primarily focussed on online health information seeking behavior, whereas a few of these studies have examined the seeking behavior intention and the usage behavior intention in a general model. The results indicate that health information usage behavior intention is closely related to the seeking behavior intention in the mobile context, which enriches the research on the relationship between information seeking and its outcomes. Furthermore, this study highlights the impact of information quality, perceived value, and trust on the intention to seek, and the impacts of information quality and trust on the intention to use, which have been overlooked in previous studies on MHIS.

A study has been carried out into sources of consumer health information available in the UK, with particular emphasis on the use of electronic sources of health information As part of this latter aim, the research has entailed an investigation of the Internet to identify the types of health information available. This paper discusses briefly the sources of health information that are available to the public, focusing on electronic information sources, and then presents the results from the search of the Internet for health information. (The links presented were correct at the time of going to press but, as with the nature of the Internet, some links may change.) The facilities available on the Internet which were used to guide the search are presented. Twenty major health information sites were identified and examples of the types of subjects presented at each site are given. The information found is judged for its suitability for the consumer or professional. In conclusion, the usefulness of the Internet as a health information source is considered.

The purpose of this paper is to help understand consumer acceptance of online health information services by integrating the health belief model and extended valence framework.

A laboratory-based, experimental-scenarios research design is used to collect data, and the structural equation modeling technique is used to test the research model.

The model explains 47.6 percent of the variance in intentions to use online health information services. Trust appeared to have the strongest effect on acceptance. Perceived risk also had a significant impact on acceptance. Furthermore, health belief variables are confirmed as important factors for consumer acceptance. Self-efficacy was found to moderate the effect of perceived severity on acceptance.

This study helped identify the relative salience of the health belief model and extended valence framework in consumer acceptance of online health information services.

This study can help practitioners better understand the development of trust and the profiles of consumers who may browse their sites. When online health service providers promote their information to encourage potential online health information seekers, they should use countermeasures against risk perceptions.

This study attempted to extend the valence framework to the non-commercial service context. Moreover, health beliefs and the valence framework are two fundamental aspects that health information seekers consider when making decisions about online health services.

In this paper the authors seek to compare lay (consumer) and professional (physician) discourse structures in answers to diabetes‐related questions in a public consumer health information website.

Ten consumer and ten physician question threads were aligned. They generated 26 consumer and ten physician answers, constituting a total dataset of 717 discourse units (in sentences or sentence fragments). The authors depart from previous LIS health information behaviour research by utilizing a computational linguistics‐based theoretical framework of rhetorical structure theory, which enables research at the pragmatics level of linguistics in terms of the goals and effects of human communication.

The authors reveal differences in discourse organization by identifying prevalent rhetorical relations in each type of discourse. Consumer answers included predominately (66 per cent) presentational rhetorical structure relations, those intended to motivate or otherwise help a user do something (e.g. motivation, concession, and enablement). Physician answers included mainly subject matter relations (64 per cent), intended to inform, or simply transfer information to a user (e.g. elaboration, condition, and interpretation).

The findings suggest different communicative goals expressed in lay and professional health information sharing. Consumers appear to be more motivating, or activating, and more polite (linguistically) than physicians in how they share information with consumers online in similar topics in diabetes management. The authors consider whether one source of information encourages adherence to healthy behaviour more effectively than another.

Analysing discourse structure – using rhetorical structure theory – is a novel and promising approach in information behaviour research, and one that traverses the lexico‐semantic level of linguistic analysis towards pragmatics of language use.

Increasing attention has been given over the last decade to the topic of health care information for patients and the public. This is called consumer health information and it encompasses information about health and illness at a lay level; information about health care services available from the statutory and voluntary sectors; and information about choices in treatment and care. This is not a uniquely modern phenomenon. A study of self care and early lay medical publishing shows a robust and continuing tradition of people looking after themselves, without recourse to health professionals and with advice from various vernacular sources. However it is only since the 1970s that libraries and information services have developed to provide ready access for the public to consumer health information. The first consumer health information (CHI) services were established in the United States. By the late 1970s the first uk services had been established in Stevenage and Southampton. For most of the 1980s these were the only well developed CHI services in the UK library world, with most health information reaching consumers through a variety of non‐library advice agencies. The last two or three years have seen a flowering of CHI services, with the encouragement of official policies on consumer choice and quality assurance. There have been advances in the bibliographic control of the subject with the availability of new CHI databases. This emerging information specialism is now reaching maturity with a new concern with quality of service.

Health information oriented toward the consumer has long been scarce. Online databases and health information directories have been geared to the health professional. Many libraries have responded to the consumer's desire for and right to health information, but most have not, except indirectly, as participants in consumer health information consortiums. As McClaskey states:

Over the past few years, the internet has expanded rapidly, and it has been considered a systematic way that consumers use to retrieve health-related information. However, the existing literature does not provide an articulated view of online health information-seeking behaviour through an in-depth understanding of users’ searching-related behaviour. The objectives of this study are to identify the factors affecting consumers’ health-related internet use and recognise the relationships between those specified and health-related internet use. Finally, the recommendations are made based on the findings.

An amalgamated model of technology acceptance model and health belief model was used to hypothesise health-related internet use behaviour, which is then tested using a cross-sectional survey of 287 Sri Lankan managerial-level employees. The covariance-based structural equation modelling with AMOS was used to check the study hypotheses.

Findings of this study depict five factors contributing to consumers’ health-related internet use as follows: perceived health risk towards chronic diseases consisting of perceived susceptibility and perceived severity; health consciousness; perceived usefulness of the internet; perceived ease of internet use; and attitude towards health-related internet use. As theorised, the internet’s perceived usefulness was positively and significantly related to consumers’ use of health-related internet and attitude towards health-related internet use. But as hypothesised, perceived ease of internet use did not directly affect consumers’ use of health-related internet. Further, findings reveal that health-related internet use is estimated by perceived health risk than health consciousness.

Findings reveal that Sri Lankan managerial-level employees have a reactive health behaviour driven by the perceived health risk and the desire to seek online health information.