大專院校學生網路消費者健康資訊尋求歷程研究

Abstract

消費者健康資訊為與大眾相關、適合大眾的醫學主題資訊。近年來,使用 者透過方便、快速的網際網路以尋求消費者健康資訊,主導自身的健康管理與進 行醫療決策。大專院校學生為網際網路的積極使用者,但相對地,網際網路的健 康資訊存有品質良莠不齊的隱憂,而使用者亦會遭遇在搜尋、評估網路健康資訊 方面的困難。因此本研究欲了解大專院校學生使用者在尋求網路健康資訊時,消 費者健康資訊需求、所利用的健康資訊來源、評估健康資訊品質的線索、如何使 用所尋求而得的健康資訊,以針對其需求及行為,提出網路健康資訊服務與教育 指導之建議。 本研究以大專院校學生(包括大學部與研究所)為研究對象,「關鍵事件 法」為研究方法,探討大專院校學生使用者在進行網路消費者健康資訊的尋求歷 程與階段,一共有40位受訪者參與本研究。研究資料蒐集流程分為三個階段:研 究者請受訪者以撰寫日誌的方式回憶於網路上搜尋消費者健康資訊的過程,第二 階段為線上訪談,補充日誌內容之不足,第三階段為半結構式訪談,40位受訪者 中一共有9位受訪者願意接受訪談。 研究結果顯示,受訪者一共有兩大類的健康資訊需求,分別為「解決特定 健康問題」與「一般日常健康資訊需求」;受訪者會透過兩種不同的方式取用與 選擇健康資訊來源,分別為「選擇直接連結資訊來源」與「選擇透過搜尋引擎尋 求健康資訊」;受訪者會透過六類線索以評估所取得之網路健康資訊,包括「資 訊載體線索」、「資訊內容線索」、「外部支持資訊」、「社群意見」、「個人 認知與經驗」、「效用性」等六大類評估線索;結束尋求過程後,受訪者會透過以下六類方式以使用資訊:「評估與瞭解身體狀況」、「遵照內容指示」、「分 享資訊」、「給予他人建議」、「增進相關知識」、「尋求醫療協助」。 本研究根據研究結果提出以下建議:「確立健康資訊網站評鑑制度」、「搜 尋引擎優化」、「健康資訊網站功能強化」、「健康資訊的內容呈現」,以及「針 對大專院校學生進行健康資訊素養之推廣」,以期提供更完善的網路健康資訊服 務,進而促進大眾之健康。

Recently, more and more users start to seek consumer health information (CHI) on the Internet for managing their own health and making medical decisions. College students are active Internet users, and they also seek health information online. But there are some quality issues regarding online health information that would bring negative effect to the users. So this study aims to understand the online health information seeking behavior of college students, including health information needs, information sources, information evaluation, and information use. We adopted critical incident technique as our research method. There were 40 college students as participants (including bachelor and master) in our study. We divided our research into three stages, including 'diary', 'online interview', and 'semi-constructed interview'. First we invited participants to write a diary to describe their previous online health information seeking experience; after they finished the diary, we did a short online interview through e-mail or messenger software to prevent anything unclear and misunderstood; in last stage, we invited 9 participants to join semi-constructed interview, sharing more about their health information seeking experience both in the diary and daily life. According to the study result, health information need of our participants could be divided into two main types: certain health concern and daily information need. Most participants took search engine in the beginning of searching, and others would link to the websites directly without search engine. Every participant used more than one sources, and they would choose the sources based on the characteristics, functions, or personal preference. Participants employed six types of cues to evaluate information quality, including information media cues, information content cues, external support information, social opinion cues, personal knowledge and experience cues, and utility cues. They utilized health information in six ways: evaluating health condition for themselves, following instructions, sharing information, advising families/friends, increasing knowledge, and seeking for medication assistance. Based on our search results, we proposed five suggestions for the health information services: (1) build effective evaluation criteria for health information websites. (2) do search engine optimization for the health information websites. (3) apply more functions and services on the websites, like medical advising system, health information delivery service, and health support social group. (4) well design and present the information contents for the public use. (5) give the online health information literacy instruction, and teach college students how to access health information online with good quality.