emakina academy / ipsos
TRANSCRIPT
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Health-related Web search habits
A recent Belgian study
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Presentation of the survey
2
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Objectives
Assess how Belgian people use Internet for Health-related information and pharma products purchase.
On-line interview from the IPSOS Access Panel.
1000 respondents, representative for the national population aged 18-65 years.
3
Methodology
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Sample’s profile
18-34
Higher Upper
FR
Urban Non urban
YES NO
35-54 55+
Male Female
FL
4
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Results
5
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Internet consultation frequency
6
88% have already searched for health-related information on the Web
29% search for health-related info every week
N=1000
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
7
Motivation to consult the Web for health-related info
First Top 3
49% are primarily
searching info about
symptoms / problems they
personally suffer from
N=884
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
8
Research modeN=884
Q4. Le plus souvent, lorsque vous consultez Internet sur des matières de santé, démarrez-vous votre recherche par un moteur de recherche (Google, …) ou vous rendez-vous directement sur un site spécifique?
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
9
Health-related visited sitesN=884
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
10
Confidence towards available sites
N=884 First Top 3
Q6. Parmi ces différents types de sites, auquel accordez-vous le plus de confiance?
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
11
Confidence criteriaN=884Q7. Lorsque vous recherchez de l’information sur la santé ou des médicaments sur Internet, sur quels critères
vous basez-vous pour évaluer la qualité, le sérieux et la crédibilité de ce que vous trouvez?
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
12
On-line medicines purchaseN = 1000
Q8. Avez-vous déjà acheté des médicaments par Internet?
OTC or RX ?
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
13
Types of medicines bought on-lineN = 40
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
14
Reasons for buying medicines on-lineN = 40
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
79
79
73
71
62
55
51
26
8
482
55
31
12
18
13
7
6
5
6 55%
65%
63%
40%
33%
65%
33%
45%
35%
10%
15
Some opinions about on-line medicines purchaseN = 1000
No danger
Same good quality as products bought in pharmacy
No instruction from a doctor or pharmacist
Contra-indications should initially be checked
Are likely to be counterfeits of less quality
Risks of harmful abuses
Only through sites with recognized quality label
Take care to have a complete scientific note
No control of the expiry date
Access to very good drugs not availablein Belgium
Disagree AgreeBuyers (N=40)
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
16
Internet site of my pharmacistN = 1000
Q14. Does your pharmacist have an Internet site?
Q15. Would you find this useful?
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
17
Motivations towards a pharmacist siteN = 598 who would find this useful
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Complementary results from a Microsoft research in the U.S. *
18
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/ryenw/papers/WhiteTOIS2009.pdf
Ryen White and Eric HorvitzNovember 2008
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Cyberchondria
About the Web potential to increase consumers’ anxiety when Web search is employed as a diagnostic procedure.
“Cyberchondria” refers to this unfounded escalation of concerns about common symptomatology.
Characterize the nature & frequency of the escalation of concerns starting from common & innocuous symptoms
Study the effects of cyberchondria over time
A log-based methodology allowing to examine at scale how people interact with medical information.
Supported by a survey of 515 individuals’ health related search experiences(Starting from 5000 randomly selected Microsoft Corporation employees).
19
Methodology
Objectives
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Some results
OBSERVATION
2% of all queries were health related
78% of all queries related to a medical symptom occur within 2 weeks of the initial query for that symptom searches for symptoms may occur in a bursty manner
HEALTH RELATED SEARCH HABITS(experience of 515 people who had performed at least 1 search for health-related info)
Average of 10 health-related Web searches per month,2 of them being for professionally undiagnosed medical conditions
58% are primarily searching health-related info for themselves,40% for relative, friend or work colleague
86% of searches are for info on symptoms49% for info on serious medical conditions42% for a medical diagnosis38% for others’ experience of similar conditions
20
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
HEALTH-RELATED ANXIETY
How often do your Web searches for symptoms / basic medical conditions lead to your review of content on serious illnesses?
PERSISTENCE & INTERRUPTION
Some results
21
Your queries for that seriousIllness persist then over weeks,
months or years
This escalation has interruptedyour online activity
This escalation has interruptedyour other activities
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Some results
SEARCHES FOR DIAGNOSES
If your queries contain medical symptoms, how often do you consider the ranking of Web search results as indicating the likelihood of the illnesses, with more likely diseases appearing higher up on the result page(s)?
In 73% of the cases, the appointment reassured them that their worries were not justified
22
o 25% have used Web search as a medical expert system where one inputs symptoms and expects to review possible diseases ranked by likelihood
o 24% believe they’ve been in the situation where Web content “put them over the threshold” for scheduling an appointment with a health professional, when they would likely have not sought professional attention if they had not reviewed Web content
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Some results
SOURCES OF ANXIETY & CONTRIBUTION OF CONTENT FEATURES
What was your anxiety related to?
23
What was it about the content of those pages that contributed to your anxiety?
Health-related Web search habits – April 2010
© 200
9 Ip
sos
Conclusions
24
Escalation of medical concerns is potentially related to the amount and distribution of medical content viewed by users, the presence of escalatory terminology in pages visited, and a user’s predisposition to escalate or seek more reasonable explanations for ailments
Persistence of concerns following an escalation and the effect that such ongoing concerns could have on interrupting users’ activities over a prolonged period of time
Search engine architects have a responsibility to ensure that searchers do not experience unnecessary concern generated by the definition of relevance and the ranking algorithms their engines use
They must focus on serving medical search results that are reliable, complete and timely, as well as topically relevant