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European Conference on Information Literacy

ECIL 2018: Information Literacy in Everyday Life pp 144–153Cite as

Which Approaches and Methods Are Most Appropriate for Exploring Health Information Behaviour?

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 989))

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to establish the approaches preferred in studies focusing on online health information seeking behaviour (OHISB). Based on the content analysis of 70 articles on OHISB retrieved from EBSCOhost databases, five larger groups of studies were identified: (1) quantitative approach (39%), (2) qualitative research (25%), (3) mixed methods design (9%), (4) meta-analysis and bibliometric aspect (10%) and (5) other studies (e.g., theoretical aspect, online health information quality). Thus, quantitative research does dominate, but only to a degree. The qualitative aspect has grown considerably over time. Subject to the analysed literature, it may be concluded that the mixed methods seem to have generated the most comprehensive approach for studying OHISB in all its variety and complexity. However, this design was in fact least used in the analysed studies compared to quantitative and qualitative research.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

    Marianne Paimre

Authors
  1. Marianne Paimre
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Correspondence to Marianne Paimre .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Management, Faculty of Letters, Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey

    Serap Kurbanoğlu

  2. Department of Information and Communication Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Sonja Špiranec

  3. Department of Information Management, Faculty of Letters, Hacettepe University, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey

    Yurdagül Ünal

  4. University of Paris-Est, Champs-sur-Marne, France

    Joumana Boustany

  5. Department of Information and Communication Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Maija Leena Huotari

  6. Department of Information Studies , University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Esther Grassian

  7. Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Diane Mizrachi

  8. School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Loriene Roy

A Appendix

A Appendix

The EBSCO Discovery of the Library of the Tartu University I conducted the search consists of the following databases: MEDLINE, Science Citation Index, Complementary Index, Academic Search Complete, Scopus@, ScienceDirect, Supplemental Index, British Library Document Supply Centre Inside Serials & Conference Proceedings, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, Directory of Open Access Journals, OpenAIRE, Dentistry & Oral Sciences Source, J-STAGE, SciELO, Social Sciences Citation Index, MasterFILE Premier, JSTOR Journals, PsycINFO, Health Source - Consumer Edition, SPORTDiscus, GreenFILE, Business Source Complete, BioOne Complete, Central & Eastern European Academic Source, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, Oxford Reference, ELibrary.RU, Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH), Regional Business News, McGraw-Hill Medical, HeinOnline, PsycARTICLES, Communication & Mass Media Complete, ERIC, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Oxford Scholarship Online, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, eArticle, Cairn.info International Edition, Teacher Reference Center, Philosopher’s Index, ProjectMUSE and MathSciNet via EBSCOhost.

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Paimre, M. (2019). Which Approaches and Methods Are Most Appropriate for Exploring Health Information Behaviour?. In: Kurbanoğlu, S., et al. Information Literacy in Everyday Life. ECIL 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 989. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13472-3_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13472-3_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-13471-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-13472-3

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