Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Aug 13, 2019
Date Accepted: Apr 4, 2020
The Relationship of Older Adults Coping with the Need to Have and Seek Health Information: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Information needs and seeking behavior describe one aspect of the context of digital health systems and set requirements for the development of data-driven health information systems and corresponding data visualizations. In the context of health, individual coping strategies of stressful situations play an important role.
Objective:
The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between individual coping strategies for stressful situations and health information needs as well as health information-seeking behavior of older adults. From this knowledge, recommendations for the design of data-driven health systems and data visualizations will be derived.
Methods:
Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews investigated the health information need (HIN) and seeking behavior (HISB) as well as individual coping strategies of N = 26 older Germans. Concept relations were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively.
Results:
Quantitatively, a trend was found for a negative correlation between the avoidance-oriented coping and HIN, rs = - 0.378 T 95%, BCa CI [- 0.730, 0.092], p = 0.053. Qualitative results supported this finding. For some participants information and exchange was part of dealing with their health situation, others wanted to learn as little as possible to avoid a decline in their health status. Elderlies acquired, collected and exchanged paper-based health data to augment clinical information sources and support information exchange with professionals.
Conclusions:
Individual coping strategies are relevant for the design of data-driven HIS and corresponding visualizations. They can support elderly people in coping with their health situation, while it remains unclear how systems must be designed for people with an avoidance coping strategy in order to achieve the same acceptance.
Citation
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