TY - JOUR
T1 - Determining health information–seeking behavior of shoulder patients
AU - Miller, Andrew S.
AU - Stetler, Phillip
AU - Sharma, Sribava
AU - Ahmed, Abdulaziz F.
AU - Jenkins, Sabrina G.
AU - Vattigunta, Saisanjana
AU - Huish, Eric
AU - Srikumaran, Uma
N1 - Funding Information:
Uma Srikumaran reports grants from Arthrex, DePuy, Smith & Nephew, and Wright Medical Technology; personal fees from Arthrex, DePuy, Fx Shoulder, Orthofix, Stryker, Thieme, Tigon Medical, and Wright Medical Technology; other from Quantum OPS, ROM3, Sonogen, and Tigon Medical, outside the submitted work; in addition, he has a patent Conventus pending, a patent Fx Shoulder pending, and a patent Tigon Medical issued.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Board of Trustees
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - Background: Patients today have access to an increasing number of health resources to guide medical decision making, including specialist health care providers, the Internet, friends, and family members. No prior studies, to our knowledge, have comprehensively explored health information–seeking behavior (HISB) for patients being managed for shoulder pain. Objective: Our primary objective is to identify which health resources patients use and find helpful in a cohort of patients being either evaluated or managed for shoulder pain. With increased access to the Internet and its use, we also hope to quantify the extent of use of Internet resources and identify predictors of patient use. Methods: We interviewed a cohort of new and follow-up patients being surgically or nonoperatively managed for shoulder pain by a single fellowship-trained orthopedic surgeon. All patients were administered a questionnaire to determine HISB, which evaluated the types of resources used and those deemed most helpful in guiding medical decision making. For patients using the Internet, specific websites were documented. Additional variables that were collected included age, gender, ethnicity, and highest education attained. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate predictors of Internet use. Results: This study included 242 patients. A discussion with an orthopedic surgeon was reported to be the most informative for nonoperatively treated patients, first postoperative patients, and operative follow-up patients. Patients at the first postoperative visit reported YouTube as their preferred resource almost 4 times more than new patients (odds ratio [OR] 3.9, P =.015). Search engine use was significantly higher in patients at the first postoperative visit (OR 5.8, P =.004) and patients at subsequent surgical follow-up (OR 8.3, P =.001) compared with new patients. Having an undergraduate (OR 0.1, P =.037) or graduate degree (OR 0.03, P =.01) had a significant inverse association with difficulty of using Internet resources. Patients of Black race reported significantly higher rates of distrust for Internet resources than those of White race (OR 5.8, P <.001). Conclusion: This study highlights the patterns of HISB among patients with shoulder conditions. A face-to-face discussion with a physician or a shoulder surgeon was the most crucial resource for information compared to other resources. This study has also defined the preferred Internet resources for patients at different time points of care and the reasons for refraining from seeking health information on the Internet. Such findings can aid shoulder surgeons in understanding the optimal methods for delivering health information for different patient demographics and different phases of their care.
AB - Background: Patients today have access to an increasing number of health resources to guide medical decision making, including specialist health care providers, the Internet, friends, and family members. No prior studies, to our knowledge, have comprehensively explored health information–seeking behavior (HISB) for patients being managed for shoulder pain. Objective: Our primary objective is to identify which health resources patients use and find helpful in a cohort of patients being either evaluated or managed for shoulder pain. With increased access to the Internet and its use, we also hope to quantify the extent of use of Internet resources and identify predictors of patient use. Methods: We interviewed a cohort of new and follow-up patients being surgically or nonoperatively managed for shoulder pain by a single fellowship-trained orthopedic surgeon. All patients were administered a questionnaire to determine HISB, which evaluated the types of resources used and those deemed most helpful in guiding medical decision making. For patients using the Internet, specific websites were documented. Additional variables that were collected included age, gender, ethnicity, and highest education attained. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate predictors of Internet use. Results: This study included 242 patients. A discussion with an orthopedic surgeon was reported to be the most informative for nonoperatively treated patients, first postoperative patients, and operative follow-up patients. Patients at the first postoperative visit reported YouTube as their preferred resource almost 4 times more than new patients (odds ratio [OR] 3.9, P =.015). Search engine use was significantly higher in patients at the first postoperative visit (OR 5.8, P =.004) and patients at subsequent surgical follow-up (OR 8.3, P =.001) compared with new patients. Having an undergraduate (OR 0.1, P =.037) or graduate degree (OR 0.03, P =.01) had a significant inverse association with difficulty of using Internet resources. Patients of Black race reported significantly higher rates of distrust for Internet resources than those of White race (OR 5.8, P <.001). Conclusion: This study highlights the patterns of HISB among patients with shoulder conditions. A face-to-face discussion with a physician or a shoulder surgeon was the most crucial resource for information compared to other resources. This study has also defined the preferred Internet resources for patients at different time points of care and the reasons for refraining from seeking health information on the Internet. Such findings can aid shoulder surgeons in understanding the optimal methods for delivering health information for different patient demographics and different phases of their care.
KW - HISB
KW - Health information–seeking behavior
KW - Patients
KW - Survey Study
KW - health resource
KW - shoulder
KW - survey
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jse.2021.12.038
DO - 10.1016/j.jse.2021.12.038
M3 - Article
C2 - 35101609
AN - SCOPUS:85129377166
SN - 1058-2746
VL - 31
SP - S57-S62
JO - Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery
JF - Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery
IS - 6
ER -