JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Consumer health informatics originated in the 1990s. With the rapid development of computer and information technology for health decision making, an increasing number of consumers have obtained health-related information through the Internet, and consumer health informatics has also attracted the attention of an increasing number of scholars.

Objective:

The goal of this research was to analyze the research themes and evolution characteristics of different study periods in consumer health informatics and from the perspective of a strategy map and a data flow to discuss its dynamic evolution path and research theme rules in a time series framework.

Methods:

The Web of Science core collection was used as the data source to retrieve relevant research articles in the field of consumer health informatics from 1999 to 2019. SciMAT was used to preprocess the literature data and, using keywords, construct the overlapping map, evolution map, strategic diagram, and cluster network. In addition, a bibliometric analysis of the general characteristics, the evolution characteristics of the theme and the evolution path of the theme was conducted.

Results:

A total of 986 articles were obtained after the retrieval, and 931 articles met the document type requirement. In the past 21 years, the number of articles increased every year, with a significant growth after 2015. The research content in four different study periods formed the following 38 themes: PATIENT-EDUCATION, MEDICINE, NEEDS and BIBLIOGRAPHIC-DATABASE in the 1999-2003 study period; WORLD-WIDE-WEB, PATIENT-EDUCATION, E-HEALTH, PATIENTS, MEDICATION, TERMINOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, TECHNOLOGY and DISEASE in the 2004-2008 study period; WEBSITES, INFORMATION-SEEKING, PHYSICIANS, ATTITUDES, TECHNOLOGY, RISK, FOOD-LABELING, PATIENT, STRATEGIES, PATIENT-EDUCATION and E-HEALTH in the 2009-2014 study period; and ELECTRONIC-MEDICAL-RECORDS, HEALTH-INFORMATION-SEEKING, ATTITUDES, HEALTH-COMMUNICATION, BREAST-CANCER, HEALTH-LITERACY, TECHNOLOGY, NATURAL-LANGUAGE-PROCESSING, USER-CENTERED-DESIGN, PHARMACY, ACADEMIC-LIBRARIES, COSTS, INTERNET-UTILISATION and ONLINE-HEALTH-INFORMATION in the 2015-2019 study period. In addition, these themes formed 10 evolution paths in three research directions: patient education and intervention, consumer demand attitude and behavior, and Internet information technology application.

Conclusions:

Averaging 93 publications every year since 2015, consumer health informatics research is in a rapid growth period. The research themes mainly focus on patient education, health information needs, health information search behavior, health behavior intervention, health literacy, health information technology, e-health and other aspects. Patient education and intervention research, consumer demand, attitude and behavior research comprise the main theme evolution path, the evolution process of which has been relatively stable. This evolution path will continue to become the research hotspot in this field. Research on the Internet and information technology application is a secondary theme evolution path with development potential.