Exploring the Online Health Information Seeking Experiences of Older Adults

In this article we explore how the experience of searching for Online Health Information (OHI) becomes a meaningful activity in the lives of older adults living with chronic health conditions. A descriptive phenomenological approach was adopted to contribute to the overall understanding of individua...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Mayoh, Joanne (Author) ; Todres, Les 1953- (Author) ; Bond, Carol S. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Rhodes University 2011
In: The Indo-Pacific journal of phenomenology
Year: 2011, Volume: 11, Issue: 2, Pages: 1-13
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:In this article we explore how the experience of searching for Online Health Information (OHI) becomes a meaningful activity in the lives of older adults living with chronic health conditions. A descriptive phenomenological approach was adopted to contribute to the overall understanding of individuals’ lived experiences of OHI-seeking through an exploration of the consciousness of the experiencer. This article provides rich experiential descriptions that have the potential to make a contribution toward healthcare practice within the UK by providing healthcare professionals with an understanding of patient experience that can help them identify patients’ needs and make improvements to care in terms of the quality of empathy and understanding for older adults with chronic health conditions. The findings also provide rich stories of older adults actively engaging in this form of health information seeking, data that could be used to challenge pre-conceptions that age is a barrier to using the Internet for this purpose.
ISSN:1445-7377
Contains:Enthalten in: The Indo-Pacific journal of phenomenology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.2989/IPJP.2011.11.2.3.1162