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Today, the Internet has become an attractive source for obtaining health information. Since women play an important role in maintaining the health of the family and community and since they are active seekers of health information through the Internet, it is essential to examine their online health information seeking behavior. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is to identify the factors affecting the online health information seeking intention and behavior of women.

The theoretical framework of this quantitative study was based on the theory of planned behavior. A total of five hypothesized relationships were formulated to develop a conceptual model. The study approach was quantitative. Using simple random sampling, 400 women referred to specialized and sub-specialized clinics of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Iran participated in the study and responded to the survey. Descriptive and inferential data analysis was performed using SPSS 21 and Smart PLS 3 software.

The results showed that the intention to find health information online is a function of psychological variables. These variables include attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. Findings showed that attitude is the most important factor affecting online health information seeking intention. It was also found that online health information seeking intention has a positive and significant effect on women's information seeking behavior.

This study is the first attempt to use an important and universally accepted theory to identify the factors affecting the online health information seeking behavior of women referring to specialized and sub-specialized clinics and provides important practical concepts for health officials and managers to improve and develop online health information seeking behavior.

The purpose of this study sought to determine the characteristics that distinguish online from offline information seekers among people living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV) in selected regional hospitals of Tanzania.

Questionnaire-based survey was conducted among 341 adults with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection attending the HIV clinics in the regional referral hospitals in Mwanza, Mbeya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The study used multivariate logistic regressions to determine factors that distinguish online HIV information seekers from offline HIV information seekers.

One in every five survey participants sought online HIV information (19.6 per cent, n = 67). Both higher level of education (odds ratio (OR) = 1.765, 95 per cent confidence interval (CI) = 1.208-2.58) and intention to use internet in future (OR = 1.566, 95 per cent CI 1.148-2.136) were predictors of online HIV information seeking behaviour at multivariate analysis. Respondents who sought online information reported to have gained knowledge such as; to understand their conditions better (77.4 per cent, n = 41) and understand information received from health care workers (66 per cent, n = 35), as well as acquisition of health promoting behaviour such as; asking questions during doctor’s visit (55 per cent, n = 35) and consulting a clinician when they have problems (64.3 per cent, n = 33). The offline HIV information seekers (n = 274) did not use internet due to lack of information seeking skills (44.3 per cent, n = 113) and lack of access to internet connectivity (30.2 per cent, n = 77).

This is a comprehensive study that differentiates online from offline HIV information seekers in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. The results suggest that interventions to improve online access information will empower patients and probably positively affect their health knowledge and health promoting behaviours.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to consider the use of the Internet as a potential facilitator of positive health-related perceptions. Specifically, we propose that online health information seeking fosters positive perceptions of health. Using path modeling, we theorized several mechanisms through which information seeking could be conducive to positive health perceptions, which we conceptualized into the following four dimensions: (1) sense of empowerment in managing health, (2) self-reported ability to take better care of health, (3) sense of improved health-related quality of life, and (4) self-reported improvement of health.

Methodology: Our sample consisted of respondents who have used the Internet as a resource for health information (n = 710), drawn from the largest national probability-based online research panel. Our comparison subsample consisted of older respondents (age ≥ 60; n = 194). We used Internet-specific measures and employed structural equation models (SEM) to estimate the direct, indirect, and total effects of health-related use of the Internet on subjective health perceptions. Based on our review of the literature, competent health communication with healthcare providers and sense of empowerment in managing personal health were modeled as mediator variables. We assessed whether the proposed mediational relationships, if significant, differed across our indicators of positive health perceptions and whether any differential associations were observed among older adults. We run parallel models for each indicator of positive health perception.

Findings: Provider-patient communication informed by the Internet resources were perceived to impart a greater sense of empowerment to manage health among our respondents, which in turn, was associated with perceived contributions to better self-reported ability to provide self-care, increased health-related quality of life, and improvement in self-reported health. The SEM results revealed a good fit with our full sample and subsample.

Research Implications: Conceptualization of the multidimensional aspects of online health information seeking with separate multi-indicator analyses of the outcome variable is important to further our understanding of how technology may impact the pathways involved in influencing health perceptions and as a result health outcomes.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare systems globally, including antenatal care coverage. Pregnant women, who were considered “at risk” during the pandemic, replaced in-person antenatal visits with telemedicine and accessed health information online. However, little is known about pregnant women’s online information-seeking behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the information seeking behaviour of pregnant women online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research uses qualitative study and in-depth interviews to obtain data from eight pregnant women during the pandemic. Data were thematically analysed, with responses presented verbatim to illustrate themes.

Findings show that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the unavailability of health professionals and the fear of contracting the COVID-19 virus influenced pregnant women’s information-seeking behaviour online. Pregnant women accessed online sources as alternatives to consultations with health professionals, searched for drug prescriptions and asked pregnancy-related questions online. Findings also revealed that pregnant women conceptualised these online sources and platforms as safe spaces for sharing and dealing with pregnancy-related anxieties and difficulties during the pandemic.

The number of participants sampled in the study is considered satisfactory since data saturation was achieved. However, considering the generalisation and transferability of the research findings, note that the study focused on a limited number of pregnant women in one state in Nigeria (Lagos State). Hence, the design and sample do not provide adequate generalisation to a larger population of pregnant women in Nigeria. Future research may generalise more broadly to other states in Nigeria. Another limitation of the study was using telephone interviews to collect data. Therefore, this paper could not analyse body language and facial expressions, which prevented us from gaining insights into participants’ descriptions of health information-seeking behaviour online. Therefore, further studies should use alternative data collection methods, such as face-to-face or online video interviews, instead of telephone interviews.

This study has implications for health policy interventions. The study’s findings can guide policies on designing digital health systems for pregnant women during health crises.

This study contributes to existing literature on health information-seeking behaviour online among a vulnerable population – pregnant women in a developing country. Specifically, the study contributes to knowledge on how pregnant women’s health information-seeking behaviour can change online within a health-crisis context like the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for their overall well-being.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy. It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts. The selected bibliography is useful to efficiently keep up with trends in library instruction for busy practitioners, library science students and those wishing to learn about information literacy in other contexts.

This article annotates 424 English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, theses and reports on library instruction and information literacy published in 2021. The sources were selected from the EBSCO platform for Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and WorldCat, published in 2021 that included the terms “information literacy,” “library instruction,” or “information fluency” in the title, abstract or keywords. The sources were organized in Zotero. Annotations summarize the source, focusing on the findings or implications. Each source was categorized into one of seven pre-determined categories: K-12 Education, Children and Adolescents; Academic and Professional Programs; Everyday Life, Community, and the Workplace; Libraries and Health Information Literacy; Multiple Library Types; and Other Information Literacy Research and Theory.

The paper provides a brief description of 424 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy within 2021.

The Internet is used as a tool to seek health information by individuals. Mental health concerns are the high prevalence of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and preventive steps are required to curb the illness. Therefore, to gain more insight into health concerns, it is now a common practice to seek health information on the Internet. This study propose an integrated theoretical model to explore the relationship between COVID-19 protocols and perceived online trust with online health information seeking intention (OHISI) and a moderating effect of perceived severity and perceived urgency.

Data are collected from 325 athletes in the category of individual and team sports through an online survey in a Likert-scale questionnaire. The analysis is performed with a quantitative methodology.

The study reveals the bright side of online health information (OHI), which brings athletes together and has played out with virtual happy hours, meetings and events. The bright side of OHI reflects social, cultural, technological and economic benefits. An OHI chatbot offers bright personalised side information to the individual seeker, which is more convenient and efficient than human capabilities.

The pivotal contribution is the integrated theoretical framework that is derived from multidisciplinary literature to capture the complexity of OHI. Also, it conceptualises the constructs in the context of OHI and COVID-19.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2019.

The paper provides a brief description of all 370 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Guided by the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (CMIS), this article identifies significant predictors that impact individuals seeking COVID-19 information. People with different political ideologies read contradictory information about the COVID-19 pandemic. However, how political ideology may affect COVID-19 information seeking remains unclear. This study explores the major information channels for individuals with different political ideologies to seek COVID-19 information. It further examines how political ideologies influence CMIS's effectiveness in predicting online health information-seeking.

This study collected 394 completed survey responses from adults living in the United States after the 2020 lockdown. ANOVA analyses revealed the differences in salience, beliefs, information carrier characteristics, utilities and information-seeking actions between Liberals and Conservatives. Regression analyses discovered variables that predict Liberals' and Conservatives' online health information seeking.

Results suggest that the internet is the top channel for COVID-19 information seeking. Compared to Conservatives, Liberals report more COVID-19 information-seeking actions. Liberals also express stronger salience, perceive higher trustworthiness of online COVID-19 information, are more likely to think of seeking online COVID-19 information as useful and helpful and report more substantial efficacy to mitigate the risk. Most CMIS variables predict Liberals' information seeking; however, only salience significantly predicts Conservatives' information seeking.

This article indicates that CMIS should include political ideology to refine its prediction of information seeking. These findings offer practical implications for designing health messages, enhancing information distribution and reducing the public's uncertainty.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-08-2022-0436.

This paper aims to investigate user health information seeking and sharing patterns and content in an online diabetes community and explore the similarities and differences in the ways and themes they expressed.

Multiple methods are applied to analyze the expressions and themes that users seek and share based on large-scale text data in an online diabetes community. First, a text classifier using deep learning method is performed based on the expression category this study developed. Second, statistical and social network analyses are used to measure the popularity and compare differences between expressions. Third, topic modeling, manual coding and similarity analysis are used to mining topics and thematic similarity between seeking and sharing threads.

There are four different ways users seek and share in online health communities (OHCs) including informational seeking, situational seeking, objective information sharing and experiential information sharing. The results indicate that threads with self-disclosure could receive more replies and attract more users to contribute. This study also examines the 10 topics that were discussed for information seeking and 14 topics for information sharing. They shared three discussion themes: self-management, medication and symptoms. Information about symptoms can be largely matched between seeking and sharing threads while there is less overlap in self-management and medication categories.

Being different from previous studies that mainly describe one type of health information behavior, this paper analyzes user health information seeking and sharing behaviors in OHCs and investigates whether there is a correspondence or discrepancy between expressions and information users spontaneously seek and share in OHCs.