JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

While searching for health information on the Internet has offered clear benefits of rapid access to information for seekers such as patients, medical practitioners and students, detrimental effects on seekers’ experiences have also been documented. Health information overload (HIO) is one such side effect, where an information seeker receives excessive volumes of potentially useful health-related messages that cannot be processed in a timely manner. HIO has been documented among human medical professionals, with consequences that include impacts on patient care. Presently, the use of the Internet for health-related information, and particularly animal health information, in veterinary students has received far less research attention.

Objective:

The purpose of this study was to explore veterinary students’ Internet search experiences to understand how students perceived the nature of online information and how these perceptions influence that information management.

Methods:

For this qualitative exploratory study, 6 separate focus groups were conducted with a sample of 21 veterinary students.

Results:

Thematic analysis of focus group transcripts indicated that veterinary students reported feeling overwhelmed by the volume and type of animal health information generated from Internet searches, and faced challenges in managing and evaluating the acquired information.

Conclusions:

Integrating electronic health information literacy (EHIL) training into human health sciences students’ training has shown to have positive effects on information management skills. Given a recent AAVMC report that considers health literacy as a professional competency, results of this study point to a direction for future research and to contemplate integrating information literacy skills in veterinary curricula. Specifically, we propose information literacy skills should include knowledge about access, retrieval, evaluation, and practical, timely application of online content searches based on tasks.