Students’ Trust Formation and Credibility Judgements in Online Health Information – A Review Article

Abstract

Health information is a frequent subject for online information seeking. Research on the phenomenon has to a certain extent included students. This review, based on an analysis of 61 articles, shows the current state of the art of research on students' trust in online health information. The review covers methodological approaches and findings of previous previous empirical studies: research design; trustworthy health information sources; credibility assessment; and factors impacting on trust formation. The analysis of research designs reveals that the survey method was most frequent, but small qualitative studies were also occurring. More than half of the studies were administered in the USA, while only a smaller part concerned 'non-Western' countries. Female subjects were more frequent than male. The concept of trust was not always explicitly defined in the studies. The students' actual propensity to use internet was generally taken as an expression of trust. The antecedents of trust identified in the studies can be summarized as the perceived quality of the information, the perceived credibility of the source or source provider, the users' general inclination to trust, the actual use of information, and the perceived intelligibility of the information. The findings show that Internet was among the main sources for health information, but parents or other family members, friends, schools, health professionals were also frequent sources of health information, and students were not immediately accepting online information as trustworthy. The students' trust and credibility judgments were influenced by social and demographic, cultural, psychological, knowledge and skills-related, and source, system and content-related factors. Governmental and organizational websites were reported as the most trustful sources, although some issues regarding website features and presentation of content were reported as barriers. Easy access were of importance for using a particular resource, but there seemed to be a learning effect impacting on seeking behaviour and trust formation.

National culture and trust in online health information

“…Second, it includes three different nationalities, that is, Chinese, South Korean and American, in order to have a more concrete cross-cultural comparison. This inclusion is in accordance with the recommendations of previous researchers (Khosrowjerdi and Sundqvist, 2017: 17; Sbaffi and Rowley, 2017), which was to include non-western countries in online health information studies. Third, it included two eastern countries in the study in order to understand the similarities or differences of trust formation between non-western and western individuals.…”

“…This concentration is in accordance with Menou’s assertion of ‘information acculturation’, that is, ‘information is culture-specific and, consequently, is largely incommunicable unless it has been acculturated’ (Menou, 1983: 121). The study contributes to the previous gap in the literature (Khosrowjerdi and Sundqvist, 2017; Sbaffi and Rowley, 2017) as follows. First, it investigates if the antecedents of trust in OHI are stable, or whether they differ based on the cultural background of the users.…”

“…In particular, studies have confirmed the effect of gender (Allen Catellier and Yang, 2012; Borzekowski and Rickert, 2001; Nustad et al, 2008; Rowley et al, 2017), age (Allen Catellier and Yang, 2012; McKinley and Ruppel, 2014), education level (Johnson et al, 2016) and geographic location (middle-sized cities vs. big cities or countryside) (Montagni et al, 2014) on the trust formation of individuals toward OHI. However, two recent reviews on trust in the online health environment (Khosrowjerdi and Sundqvist, 2017; Sbaffi and Rowley, 2017) showed inconsistencies in the trust literature when it comes to understanding the trust formations of different groups of users in relation to OHI. These reviews called for more socio-cultural studies in this domain.…”

Cultural Patterns of Information Source Use: A Global Study of 47 Countries

“…Case & Given, ). For example, demographic, psychological, socio‐cultural, and source‐, system‐ and content‐related aspects have been found to explain individuals' information seeking and use in a number of quantitative investigations (e.g., Al‐Samarraie, Eldenfria, & Dawoud, ; Khosrowjerdi & Sundqvist, ; Niu & Hemminger, ; Rowley, Johnson, & Sbaffi, ; Zimmer & Henry, ). Several studies bring forth culture as an antecedent of information related activities (Catellier & Yang, ; Jemielniak & Wilamowski, ; Neumark, Lopez‐Quintero, Feldman, Hirsch Allen, & Shtarkshall, ; Oh & Kim, ; Yoon & Kim, ).…”