BACKGROUND
Web-based question and answer (Q&A) sites have emerged as an alternative source for serving individuals’ health information needs. Although a number of studies have analyzed user-generated content in web-based Q&A sites, there is insufficient understanding of the effect of disease complexity on information-seeking needs and the types of information shared, and little research has been devoted to the questions concerning multimorbidity.
OBJECTIVE
This study aims to investigate seeking of health information in Q&A sites at different levels of disease complexity. Specifically, this study investigates the effects of disease complexity on information-seeking needs, types of information shared, and stages of disease development.
METHODS
First, we selected a random sample of 400 questions separately from each of the Q&A sites: Yahoo Answers and WebMD Answers. The data cleaning resulted in a final set of 624 questions from the two sites. We used a mixed methods approach, including qualitative content analysis and quantitative statistical analysis.
RESULTS
The one-way results of ANOVA showed significant effects of disease complexity (single vs multimorbid disease questions) on two information-seeking needs: diagnosis (<i>F</i><sub>1,622</sub>=5.08; <i>P</i>=.02) and treatment (<i>F</i><sub>1,622</sub>=4.82; <i>P</i>=.02). There were also significant differences between the two levels of disease complexity in two stages of disease development: the general health stage (<i>F</i><sub>1,622</sub>=48.02; <i>P</i><.001) and the chronic stage (<i>F</i><sub>1,622</sub>=54.01; <i>P</i><.001). In addition, our results showed significant effects of disease complexity across all types of shared information: demographic information (<i>F</i><sub>1,622</sub>=32.24; <i>P</i><.001), medical diagnosis (<i>F</i><sub>1,622</sub>=11.04; <i>P</i><.001), and treatment and prevention (<i>F</i><sub>1,622</sub>=14.55; <i>P</i><.001).
CONCLUSIONS
Our findings present implications for the design of web-based Q&A sites to better support health information seeking. Future studies should be conducted to validate the generality of these findings and apply them to improve the effectiveness of health information in Q&A sites.