Health information for the consumer: NHS vs the BBC

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate of the results of a survey which asked people where they went online for their health information, why and what success they had. The prime purpose of the questionnaire was to obtain information on the audience for health information web sites and t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Aslib proceedings 2007-01, Vol.59 (1), p.46-67
Main Authors:	Huntington, Paul, Nicholas, David, Jamali, Hamid R, Russell, Chris
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	BBC Consumers Health care Health education Information industry Information media Information research Information seeking behavior Internet Medical personnel Medicine National Health Service Online information retrieval Online information services Polls & surveys Public User surveys Users Web sites Websites World Wide Web
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate of the results of a survey which asked people where they went online for their health information, why and what success they had. The prime purpose of the questionnaire was to obtain information on the audience for health information web sites and to obtain feedback as to what they used online health sites for. The focus was on two major publicly funded health internet sites: NHS Direct Online and the BBC web site.Design methodology approach - An online survey was carried out with a population of internet users in the UK in the winter of 2004, yielding a sample of nearly 1,000 (923) people and a response rate of 4.4 per cent was achieved.Findings - The survey identified that indeed both sites were well used although their users were very different in terms of how they arrived at each site and in terms of what they were looking for. Outcomes resulting from using the sites are discussed and compared. Though outcomes differed between NHS Direct Online and the BBC the data suggest that the national sites were not meeting the demanding information needs of some users.Originality value - It is the first time that two publicly funded national sites that aim to provide the UK population with health information are compared.
ISSN:	0001-253X 2050-3806 1758-3748