Patient Information Aid: Promoting the Right to Know, Evaluate, and Share Consumer Health Information Found on the Internet

摘要

Promoting the use of online consumer health information is critical to achieving the democratic right to know and cannot be separated from facilitating the process of finding and understanding this information. In addition, being informed and being able to share information with a clinician are fundamental principles enabling patient engagement in health care and shared decision making. Online consumer health information may contribute to positive patient outcomes such as improved knowledge, and even better health, while in some situations it also leads to increased worry. This type of negative outcome represents a common experience. Our health is important and therefore anything that touches our health can increase anxiety. In our view, worrying is not a disorder; only occasionally it is an incapacitating cyberchondria. Since 2005, our research has been exploring health information outcomes from the consumers' viewpoint. We are particularly interested in information outcomes such as the types of information use and the types of subsequent health outcomes. Thus, we are currently engaged in a participatory systematic mixed studies review aimed to identify these types of outcomes, and develop a Patient Information Aid, an aid to empower consumers and patients to find, understand, assess, and use online consumer health information.