Mary Jo Dorsey, MLS, AHIP, PhD Candidate

1
A (preliminary) Consumer Health
Information-Seeking Behavior Model of Primary
Care Physicians Who Treat Elderly Depressed
Patients
212
Mary Jo Dorsey, MLS, AHIP, PhD Candidate School
of Information Sciences University of
Pittsburgh With support from the NIMH
ACISR/Late Life Mood Disorders Center, School of
Medicine P30 MH071944
Objective and Setting This poster describes
research, methodology and expectations of a study
designed to investigate consumer health
information (CHI)-seeking behaviors of primary
care physicians who treat elderly depressed
patients. The study identifies a specific
population--senior health consumers--and
investigates the steps that their front-line
outpatient caregivers take to make sure their
patients have the information needed to
understand their illnesses and to take part in a
shared decision-making process with regard to
treatment. The poster reports findings from a
pilot study of some of the MDs.

• What do we already know about elders use of the
  Internet?1-4
• Roughly 20 of seniors age 65 have used the Web
  to seek health information
• Almost 84 of seniors felt more comfortable with
  information given to them by a health provider
• 40 actually tried to diagnose their own problems
  with this information
• One-third sought support from others
• Just over a quarter of this population tried to
  treat the health problem on their own.

Figure 1. Preliminary model.
Figure 2. Physicians confidence levels with CHI
Methodology Using a grounded theory approach
similar to that used in Ellis information
seeking behavior model research5,6, data was
collected through personal interviews with
Pittsburgh-area primary care physicians who see
large numbers of elderly patients in their
practices, together with environmental scans of
their practice spaces and their responses to a
standardized questionnaire on their confidence in
using consumer health information with their
patients. Glaser Strauss constant comparative
method7 will lead to a generation of theory about
the physicians common information-seeking
behaviors from the empirically collected data.
Data was gathered in three phases (1)
semi-structured interviews (2) environmental
scans (3) self-evaluative confidence scale

• Conclusions and Significance
• Awareness of trends of information habits can
  lead to awareness of ones own information needs.
  
• Medical school educators instruct physicians
  in training
• LIS faculty educate graduate library and
  information science students who, in turn, as
• Medical librarians, teach information seeking
  and retrieval methods to physicians.
• A synthesized behavior model can enhance this
  educational process.
• If an understanding of the CHI
  information-seeking behaviors of this group of
  physicians is successful, then the ACISR can also
  create its own consumer health information
  materials based precisely on their patients and
  caregivers information needs.

• The Study Questions
• How are these physicians searching for consumer
  health information?
• How are physicians responding to health
  information requests from their patients or
  caregivers?
• Can a consumer health information-seeking model
  that is significant for the medical and LIS
  professions be constructed?

• References
• Ybarra M. 2006. Health Educ Res. Reasons,
  assessments and actions taken sex and age
  differences in uses of Internet health
  information.
• Dickerson S. 2004. J Am Med Inform Assoc.
  Patient Internet use for health information at
  three urban primary care clinics.
• Rideout V. 2005. Kaiser Family Foundation
  Report. E-Health and the elderly How seniors
  use the Internet for health information. Survey
  conducted by the Program for the Study of
  Entertainment Media and Health.
• Fox S. 2006. Pew/Internet Report Online Health
  Search 2006
• Ellis, D., Modeling the information-seeking
  patterns of academic researchers A grounded
  theory approach. Library Quarterly, 1993. 63(4)
  469-486.
• Ellis, D., Modeling the information-seeking
  patterns of engineers and research scientists in
  an industrial environment. J Documentation, 1997.
  53(4) 384-403.
• Glaser, B. and A. Strauss, The discovery of
  grounded theory strategies for qualitative
  research. Observations. 1967, Chicago Aldine
  Pub. Co. 271p.

Results The preliminary model indicates the
presence of three stages of physician
information-seeking. (1) The pre-patient visit
includes tasks such as listening to or reading
current medical news that patients might be
hearing, perusing websites that their patients
(or family caregivers) may be familiar with,
looking for educational materials of a case-based
nature. (2) Information-seeking activities that
occur during the patient visit primarily include
reaching for the computer in the clinical office
with the patient present and searching for a
website or searching tools such as UpToDate or
MDConsult for information to show the patient.
(3) Information-seeking behaviors which occur
following a patient visit include website
follow-ups or notes to self in a palm or
hand-held device to gather information at a later
time or to request a search from the library or
an administrative assistant.