The Decision-Making Processes of Pregnant Women at High Risk

Introduction

Under the context of the new health communication paradigms, this chapter explores the implications and challenges that the current online search and open publication practices may have on the decision-making process of pregnant women with an associated maternal pathology.

Acknowledging the importance of the concepts of autonomy and mediation in understanding the strategies and mechanisms of e-health information searching, this chapter presents the results of a study which main purpose was understanding how the decision-making process of pregnant women is influenced by the search for information provided by institutional and/or commercial website; moreover we intended to understand whether the nature, quantity and quality of information is taken into account when choosing a source of information and whether the participation of pregnant women in social networks increases the ability of decision-making and if the views and stories shared by other pregnant women influence their decisions; finally our study aimed at comprehend if the decision-making process is supported by the opinions expressed by health professionals or by self-guided web search.