NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Individuals in the US are likely to first turn to the World Wide Web when seeking health information, even though they trust their physicians more to provide them with accurate medical information, results of a nationally representative survey suggest.

"The context in which patients consume health information has changed dramatically with diffusion of the Internet, advances in telemedicine, and changes in media health coverage," lead investigator Dr. Bradford W. Hesse and his associates point out in their report, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine for December 12/26.

To track these changes, Dr. Hesse with the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and his associates analyzed data procured in the first Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), administered by telephone to 6369 adults between October 2002 and April 2003.

Results showed that 63.0% of respondents had ever used the Internet. Of these, 63.7% had looked there for some type of health or medical information. Other health-related Internet activities, such as purchasing medication, communicating with physicians, or participating in an online support group, were taken advantage of by less than 10% of users.

The authors report that 62.4% of respondents said that they trusted physicians "a lot" for cancer information, compared with 23.9% for the Internet.

When asked where they would prefer to go first for information about cancer, 49.5% reported wanting to go to their physicians. In actuality, only 10.9% of those who had sought information about cancer reported having gone to the physician as a source of first resort, whereas 48.6% went to the Internet first.

"Ongoing attention may be needed to adjust reimbursement policies for time spent with patients interpreting printouts, for accommodating shifts toward informed and shared decision making, for steering consumers to credible information sources, and for attending to the needs of those who fall through the cracks of the digital divide," Dr. Hesse's group suggests.

They intend to repeat the HINTS biennially, which "should serve as an important bellwether for dramatic changes in the national health information environment."

Arch Intern Med 2005;165:2618-2624

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