Consumer Perception towards Internet Health Information Resources

Introduction

Internet was created in 1969, and with the advent of the personal computer, computer technology has continued to evolve at a rapid rate in the early 70s (Flisher, 2010). According to a research carried by California Health Care Foundation, 80% the adults use internet to search for online health information about diseases or treatment. (Fox, 2011). Although adult population likely to seek health information online, students also participate in seeking information online rather than offline before making decision (Ogan, Ozakca, & Groshek, 2007). By using internet, students are able to search health information easily. In recent year, health-care practitioners have improved the research in training, and patient care through Internet. Based on different requirements, students can search medicine or treatment to recover diseases or keep healthy. Professionals in health-care enabled the use of internet to search for medical records, and literature to explain the health information. Internet provides health sources and references for students to gain knowledge related health-care. Generally, student can access internet for information-seeking about health-care.

Internet becomes one of the most importance tools to search for any resources. Despite the advantages of the internet, the resources are not fully utilized due to time constraints, lack of infrastructure, inadequate information searching skills, lack of motivation and acceptance (Callen, Buyankhishig, & Mcintosh, 2008; Renwick, 2005). As online information accumulate all descriptions of health information resources, it becomes necessary to develop and navigate the reliable resources to all students as they need guidance to avoid unreliable or fake health information from internet which makes students get confused of which sources can be trusted. Majority of the students prefer search engine such as Google to search information but they could not identify which of the information is trustable. So, they will spend a lot of time for findings health information or refer recommendations from friends.

Health information resources are transactions in the system to integrate new scientific evidence, practice, and other information management activities to adapt new health care information systems (Chaudhry, Wang, Wu, Maglione, Mojica, Roth, Morton, and Shekelle, 2006). In fact, health information resources can provide related issues like biomedical ethics, health medicine, and treatment method to explain more about the topics. Nowadays, health information resources can be acquired by clicking “one button” on laptop or smartphone, where it is easy for students to search any topics. Many of the online health sources provide more than one type of information in the online health information library; also, they share knowledge or experiences at different type of social media like Facebook, Twitter or Blog.

For students or working adults, they could find resources like books, journal and articles to answer questions that they face in their daily practice or task by accessing internet to seek professional medical doctors’ guidance of related topics. Students would feel more confident with medical doctors who shared their experience and knowledge related health-care. Internet’s potential ability provides high-quality and trustworthy health information. In recent years, the rate of adoption for information and communication technology (ICT) has increased in Malaysia by the utilization of electronic health records and other patient management systems. The utilization of ICT has going well with the good telecommunication infrastructure among all publics and benefits to all students as they can access internet searching health information through mobile devices or laptop and spend time reading books or journals any time.