The Role of Information Completeness in EHealth

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Health Communication on the Web Information
Completeness as a Quality Criterion

• Dr. Mohan J. Dutta-Bergman
• Health Communication, Purdue University

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Current Trends

• Increasing consumer health information seeking on
  the Internet (Dutta-Bergman, 2004a, 2004b,
  Eysenbach et al., 2002, Napoli, 2000)
• Increasing number of health-related Websites
• Growing concern regarding the quality of health
  information on the Internet (Eysenbach et al.,
  2002)

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What is Completeness?

• Having all necessary parts, elements, or steps
• All key elements (Eysenbach et al., 2002)

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Importance of Completeness

• Evaluation of health websites (Expert
  perspective)
• Consumer health outcomes
• Consumer decision making
• Website-related outcomes
• Physician-patient relationship

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Elements of Completeness

• Theory
• Claim
• Grounds
• Warrants
• Backing
• Method
• Side effects
• Limitations

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Completeness
METHOD
THEORY
SIDE EFFECTS
LIMITATIONS
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Two Studies

• Experimental Design
• To measure the effect of completeness on
• Consumer Health Attitudes
• Consumer Health Intentions
• Attitude toward Website
• Intention toward Website
• Credibility Evaluations

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Study Design

• 2 X 3 Design
• Information Completeness
• Complete
• Incomplete
• Jargon
• Surfing-Searching
• Dependent Measures
• Attitude (Issue, Article, Website)
• Intention (Issue, Website)
• Website Credibility

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Sample Characteristics

• 246 Respondents
• Undergraduates enrolled in journalism classes
• 151 females and 87 males
• Mean age 21 years
• Mean number of hours spent on the Internet 21
  years
• Average Internet experience 6 years
• Randomly assigned to each of the 6 cells in the 2
  X 3 design

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Measures

• 3 Pilot studies and 2 pre-tests
• Surfing-Searching
• Completeness
• Dependent Measures
• Attitude toward the Issue
• Intention toward the issue
• Attitude toward the Website
• Intention toward the Website

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Measuring Completeness
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Table 1 ANOVA of Between-Subject Effects of
Completeness and Web Use Motivation on Attitude
toward the Issue
Note Different superscripts for the column
totals reflect a significant difference between
the completeness means at plt .001 level. Means
sharing the same superscript are not
significantly different from each other in their
completeness levels.
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Table 2 ANOVA of Between-Subject Effects of
Completeness and Web Use Motivation on Attitude
toward the Article
Note Different superscripts for the column
totals reflect a significant difference between
the completeness means at plt .001 level. Means
sharing the same superscript are not
significantly different from each other.
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Table 3 ANOVA of Between-Subject Effects of
Completeness and Web Use Motivation on Attitude
toward the Website
Note 1 Different superscripts for the column
totals reflect a significant difference between
the completeness means at plt .001 level. Means
sharing the same superscript are not
significantly different from each other. Note
2 Different superscripts for the row totals
reflect a significant difference between the web
use motivation means at plt .001 level.
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Table 4 ANOVA of Between-Subject Effects of
Completeness and Web Use Motivation on Intention
toward the Issue
Note 1 Different superscripts for the column
totals reflect a significant difference between
the completeness means at plt .001 level. Means
sharing the same superscript are not
significantly different from each other. Note
2 Different superscripts for the row totals
reflect a significant difference between the web
use motivation means at plt .001 level.
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Table 5 ANOVA of Between-Subject Effects of
Completeness and Web Use Motivation on Intention
toward the Website
Note 1 Different superscripts for the column
totals reflect a significant difference between
the completeness means at plt .001 level. Means
sharing the same superscript are not
significantly different from each other. Note
2 Different superscripts for the row totals
reflect a significant difference between the web
use motivation means at plt .001 level.
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Completeness Credibility

• Completeness positively influences user
  assessment of source credibility
• Completeness positively influences user
  assessment of website credibility

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Conclusions

• Completeness of health information plays a key
  role in patient decision making
• Completeness influences Attitude and Intention
  with respect to the issue.
• Completeness influences additional health
  information seeking

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Completeness Branding

• Completeness influences Attitude and Intention in
  the context of the Website
• Completeness influences credibility of the
  Website (Key Element in branding)

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Directions for future research

• Measure the relationship between completeness and
  outcomes in the context of actual health
  websites
• Evaluate the role of completeness in a nationally
  representative sample
• Evaluate the role of completeness in
  disease-specific groups
• Evaluate the role of completeness in underserved
  segments
• Rural
• Uninsured

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Questions?