Searching for information on health through internet
Abstract
Internet is a tool in constant growth and has a tremendous influence on the population. Although it provides almost unlimited information, not all this information is reliable.
Goal: to get to know if patients make use of the Internet to find out about health; if they do it before or after consulting health professionals and the credibility they give to the obtained information. Furthermore, notice the progress of the searches over time and the generational influence on the use of this tool.
Methodology: descriptive and cross-sectional research through a questionnaire to 150 in-patients and out-patients with four health-related items about typical uses of the Internet. Subsequently, the research results were compared with data from the NSI (National Statistical Institute) in previous years.
Results: 65% of the patients make use of the Internet to learn about health. Among patients under 60 years do 85.5% in front of patients above 60, 24.5%. A 47.4% reported earlier and another 47.4% do after contact with professionals (5.2% before and after). The credibility average they give to the information is 5.67 points on 10. Internet searches about health continue to grow with the passage of the years.
Conclusions: Internet is a tool commonly used by patients to learn about health, especially among the young, but the credibility given to this information is not very high, so it is necessary a greater control of the existent information, as well as a proper health education, adequate and continued by professionals.
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