JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Information on health and healthcare is abundant on the internet. To be able to make an informed choice, patients need reliable and easy to understand information about the quality and availability of care providers and treatment options. But the reliability of much of the information found on the internet is difficult to assess.

Objective:

The aim of the study was to test online information about dementia and diabetes including a new presentation format of ‘care routes’ on patients to see if they understand the information and are able to use it.

Methods:

38 Cognitive interviews were held; 20 people viewed the information about diabetes and 18 viewed the dementia information. The participants were first asked what they would want to know about either diabetes or dementia, what choices they would want to make concerning their preferred care provider and the possible treatment and what information they would like to find in order to make these choices. They were then asked to view the relevant pages. The interview was focussed on the general information about the condition, the ‘care route’, and the quality information for choosing a hospital. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and then systematically coded and ordered into themes.

Results:

The themes for both webpages that emerged from the analysis were: information needs, findability, usability, comprehension and readability, recognisability, ‘care route’, quality information, and usefulness. The information needs were very diverse and dependent on the personal situation and condition of the participant. Several participants were unable to find specific items because they were not where they expected them to be. Most participants were positive about the layout, font and colour scheme of the test pages. However, options of clicking through to another website, and indications where information can be expanded and collapsed, could be made more clear. The information was generally found to be easy to understand, but the participants felt a need for a more detailed explanation of the medical terms. Recognition of the information on the website played an important role in the interview, participants assessed whether the information they found matched their experiences. The term ‘care route’ meant little to most of the participants, but the layout of the ‘care route’ itself was felt to be clear. Not many respondents spontaneously went to the quality information and a number of participants had difficulty understanding it. Overall, the participants thought the information on the website was useful and helpful.

Conclusions:

The cognitive interviews gave numerous insights into how online information is processed and understood. The ‘care route’ offers a clear overview of the various stages as the condition progresses, but the name ‘care route’ is not clear to everyone. We did not succeed in gaining insight into the differences between groups of people in terms of information needs, comprehension, and use of the information because the diversity within the group of participants was lower than expected.