Information Behaviors of Parents Seeking Health Information for their Children

1. Information Behaviors of Parents Seeking Health Information for their Children Annice Sevett Background Conclusion Parents are one of the most popular consumer groups of health information due to the developing nature of their immune systems and the frequency in which children exhibit signs of illness (Khoo et. al, 2008). With a wide variety of illnesses impacting children, parents have unique health information needs and a number of sources available to them. As health information has become widely available online, reports conclude that individuals are turning to these sources for health information. According to Pew Research Center, 59% of adults with internet access have looked for health information online for themselves or another individual, including children (Fox and Duggan, 2013). Due to the health information seeking behaviors of parents, libraries have an opportunity to provide credible, informative resources tailored to meet the needs of parents. Handouts with appropriate resources and the type of resources used during a reference transaction can be tailored to meet the information needs and patterns of information seeking of parents. More research needs to be done in terms of specific conditions and characteristics for the individuals in order to fully understand where parents turn to seek health information. The most common sources of health information, in order from the most used to the least used. Results Type of resources that should be used for each information need This review of the literature found that parents turn to a variety of sources for their health information needs. In a month, parents used on average five sources of health information (Khoo et al, 2008; Moseley, Freed, and Goold, 2010). In general, the primary source of information seeking for parents was a health care professional with the internet being the second most common source (Bernhardt and Felter, 2004; Bouche and Migeot, 2008). The seeking behaviors changed considerably when the need was more than routine medical information or to supplement basic health information provided by the doctor. Looked for health Information online References Bernhardt, J. M., & Felter, E. M. (2004). Online pediatric information seeking among mothers of young children: Results from a qualitative study using focus groups. Journal of medical Internet research, 6(1). Bouche, G., & Migeot, V. (2008). Parental use of the internet to seek health information and primary care utilisation for their child: a cross-sectional study. BMC public health, 8, 300. doi:10.1186/1471 -2458-8-300 Fox, S., & Duggan, M. (2013). Health online 2013. Washington, D.C., Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Gage, E. a, & Panagakis, C. (2012). The devil you know: Parents seeking information online for paediatric cancer. Sociology of health & illness, 34(3), 444–58. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9566.2011.01386.x Khoo, K., Bolt, P., Babl, F. E., Jury, S., & Goldman, R. D. (2008). Health information seeking by parents in the internet age. Journal of paediatrics and child health, 44(7-8), 419–23. doi:10.1111/j. 1440-1754.2008.01322.x Knapp, C., Madden, V., Marcu, M., Wang, H., Curtis, C., Sloyer, P., & Shenkman, E. (2011). Information seeking behaviors of parents whose children have life-threatening illnesses, (May 2010), 805– 811. doi:10.1002/pbc Moseley, K. L., Freed, G. L., & Goold, S. D. (2011). Which sources of child health advice do parents follow? Clinical pediatrics, 50(1), 50–6. doi:10.1177/0009922810379905 Schaffer, R., Kuczynski, K., & Skinner, D. (2008). Producing genetic knowledge and citizenship through the internet: Mothers, pediatric genetics, and cybermedicine. Sociology of health & illness, 30(1), 145– 59. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9566.2007.01042.x Starke, M., & Moller, a. (2002). Parents’ needs for knowledge concerning the medical diagnosis of their children. Journal of Child Health Care, 6(4), 245–257. doi:10.1177/136749350200600402 Life Threatening Illnesses: Adult internet users who have looked online for health information When the need changed for information about life-threatening illnesses, parents used their provider more frequently. Research shows that parents did not use the internet or other sources of information frequently for fear of what they might find (Gage and Panagakis, 2012). When the internet was used, parents looked for support groups or information about specific treatments and drugs (Knapp, et. al, 2011). Objective The aim of this study is to analyze how parents seek health information for their children and to determine if the type of information needed changes the information seeking behavior of parents with a focus on internet use. Rare Disorders: Method Parents whose children were diagnosed with rare disorders used the internet as their main source of health information because they were dissatisfied with the information provided by the doctor (Starke and Moller, 2002). They were active agents of health information, using personal stories to fill the information gap left by providers (Schaffer, Kuczynski, and Skinner, 2007). Review of the health care and library science literature concerning health information seeking behaviors of parents to analyze the research completed on this topic. The review included CINAHL, PubMed, and Library and Information Science and Technology Abstracts to look at literature conducted in this area.