Consumer health information e-mails: Content, metrics and issues

Aslib Proceedings

Volumn 56, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 166-179

  Homewood, Janet ^a  

^a CITY UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Consumers; Electronic mail; Personal health; United Kingdom

Indexed keywords

FEEDBACK; HEALTH; INFORMATION ANALYSIS; PROFESSIONAL ASPECTS; RESEARCH; WEBSITES;

CONSUMERS; PUBLIC HEALTH; UNITED KINGDOM;

ELECTRONIC MAIL;

EID: 3042837715     PISSN: 0001253X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1108/00012530410539340     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (45)

1. Adam, R. (2002), "Is e-mail addictive?", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 54 No. 2, pp. 85-94.
2. Amankwaa, L. (2000), "Qualitative data analysis: using NUD*IST4 in a preliminary investigation of post partum depression among African-American women", The Qualitative Report, Vol. 4 No. 3/4, available at: www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR4-3/amankwaa.html (accessed 6 March, 2004).
3. Baron, N.S. (1998), "Letters by phone or speech by other means: the linguistics of email", Language and Communication, Vol. 18, pp. 133-70.
4. Bryman, A. (2001), Social Research Methods, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
5. Carey, S., Low, S. and Hansbro, J. (1997), Adult Literacy In Britain, Office for National Statistics, London.
6. Cline, R.J.W. and Haynes, K.M. (2001), "Consumer health information seeking on the Internet: the state of the art", Health Education Research, Vol. 16 No. 6, pp. 671-92.
7. Coulter, A., Entwlstle, V. and Gilbert, D. (1999), "Sharing decisions with patients: is the information good enough?", British Medical Journal, Vol. 318 No. 7179, pp. 318-22.
8. Culver, J.D., Gerr, F. and Frumlin, H. (1997), "Medical information on the Internet: a study of an electronic bulletin board", Journal of General Internal Medicine, Vol. 12 No. 8, pp. 466-70.
9. Davison, K.P., Pennebaker, J.W. and Dickerson, S.S. (2002), "Beyond hearing: where real-world and online support meet", Group Dynamics, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 78-88.
10. Digital Health Research Unit (2002), The Digital Health Research Unit: Methods, available at: www.soi.city.ac.uk/organisation/is/research/dhrg/methods. html (accessed 6 March, 2004).
11. Eysenbach, G. (2000), "Towards ethical guidelines for dealing with unsolicited patient emails and giving teleadvice in the absence of a pre-existing patient-physician relationship - systematic review and expert survey", Journal of Medical Internet Research, Vol. 2 No. 1, p. e1, available at: www.jmir.org/2000/1/e1/index.htm (accessed 6 April, 2003).
12. Eysenbach, G. and Diepgen, T.L (1999), "Patients looking for information on the Internet and seeking teleadvice: motivation, expectations, and misconceptions as expressed in e-mails sent to physicians", Archives of Dermatology, Vol. 135, pp. 151-6.
13. Fogel, J., Albert, S.M., Schnabel, F., Ditkoff, B.A. and Neugut, A.I. (2002), "Internet use and social support in women with breast cancer", Health Psychology, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 398-404.
14. Gann, B. (2003), "Developments within NHS Direct Online", conference presentation, delivered at New Methods Of Delivering Information To Patients And Clinicians, London, 9 June.
15. Grbich, C. (1999), Qualitative Research in Health: An Introduction, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
16. Hanna, B. (1997), "From raw data to chapters via the support of NUD*IST", Health Informatics Journal, Vol. 3, pp. 61-5.
17. Houston, T.K. and Allison, J.J. (2002), "Users of Internet health information: differences by health status", Journal of Medical Internet Research, Vol. 4 No. 2, p. e7, available at: www.jmir.org/2002/2/e7/index.htm (accessed 6 March, 2004).
18. Huntington, P., Nicholas, D., Homewood, J. and Polydoratou, P. (2003), "The general public's use and perceptions of interactive, personal digital health information and advisory services" (draft).
19. Illingworth, N. (2001), "The Internet matters: exploring the use of the Internet as a research tool", Sociological Research Online, Vol. 6 No. 2, available at: www.socresonline.org.uk/6/2/illingworth.html (accessed 6 March, 2004).
20. Johnson, C. and Johnson, K. (n.d.), "Readability", available at: www.timetabler.com/reading.html (accessed 6 March, 2004).
21. Kivits, J. (2001), "Recruiting interviewees online: gaining access to 'healthy' Internet users", available at: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/ KIVITS/EASST_conference_Web.htm (accessed 1 June, 2003).
22. Klemm, P., Hurst, M., Dearholt, S.L. and Trone, S.R. (1999), "Cyber solace: gender differences on Internet cancer support groups", Computers in Nursing, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 65-72.
23. Mallon, R. and Oppenheim, C. (2001), "Style used in electronic mail", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 54 No. 1, pp. 8-22.
24. Mann, C. and Stewart, F. (2000), Internet Communication and Qualitative Research, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, Ch. 4.
25. Murray, C.D. and Sixsmith, J. (2002), "Qualitative health research via the Internet: practical and methodological issues", Health Informatics Journal, Vol. 8, pp. 47-53.
26. Nicholas, D. (2000), Assessing Information Needs: Tools, Techniques and Concepts for the Internet Age, Aslib IMI, London.
27. Nicholas, D., Huntington, P. and Williams, P. (2000), "When Titans clash", Managing Information, Vol. 7 No. 9, pp. 72-5.
28. Nicholas, D., Huntington, P. and Williams, P. (2002b), NHS Direct Online Interactive, Digital Health Research Unit, London.
29. Nicholas, D., Huntington, P., Williams, P. and Jordan, M. (2002a), "NHS Direct Online: its users and their concerns", Journal of Information Science, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 305-19.
30. Office for National Statistics (2003), "Internet access: households and individuals", available at: www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/int0403.pdf (accessed 6 March, 2004).
31. Paccagnella, L. (1997), "Getting the seat of your pants dirty: strategies for ethnographic research on virtual communities", Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, Vol. 3 No. 1, available at: www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue1/paccagnella.html (accessed 6 March, 2004).
32. QSR International Pty Ltd (2002), "N6 (Non-numerical Unstructured Data Indexing Searching and Theorizing) Qualitative Data Analysis Program, version 6.0" (online), available at: www.qsr-software.com/ (accessed 6 March, 2004).
33. Rice, R.P. (1997), "An analysis of stylistic variables in electronic mail", Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 5-23.
34. Sallis, P. and Kassabova, D. (2000), "Computer-mediated communication: experiments with e-mail readability", Information Sciences, Vol. 123, pp. 43-53.
35. Spadaro, R. (2003), Eurobarometer 58.0: EU Citizens and Sources of Information about Health, The European Opinion Research Group, European Commission, Brussels, available at: www.idt.unisg.ch/org/idt/ceegov.nsf/0/ d2ce9033da0ef934c1256d11003e3f547OpenDocument (accessed 6 March, 2004).
36. Sullivan, E. (2000), "Health literacy", available at: www.nnlm.gov/scr/conhlth/hlthlit.htm (accessed March 6, 2004).
37. Sundin, O. (2000), "Qualitative research in health information user studies - what good can it do?", paper presented at the 8th International Congress on Medical Librarianship, London, available at: www.icml.org/tuesday/ user/sundin.htm (accessed 1 June, 2003).
38. Watt, R.J.C. (2002), "Concordance Version 3.0", (software), available at: www.rjcw.freeserve.co.uk/ (accessed 6 March 6, 2004).
39. Wikgren, M. (2001), "Health discussions on the Internet: a study of knowledge communication through citations", Library and Information Science Research, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 305-18.
40. Wikgren, M. (2002), "Everyday health information exchange and citation behaviour In internet discussion groups", paper presented at the 4th International Conference Information Seeking in Context, Lisbon.
41. Williams, P. (2003a), "Coding reliability", personal communication, 4 September.
42. Williams, P. (2003b), "Health information on the Internet: a qualitative study of NHS Direct Online users", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 55 No. 5/6, pp. 304-12.
43. Williams, P., Nicholas, D., Huntington, P. and McLean, F. (2002), "Surfing for health: user evaluation of a health information Web site. Part two: fieldwork", Health Information and Libraries Journal, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 214-25.
44. Wilson, R. (1998), "PILs project report: ensuring the readability, understandability and efficacy of the Phase Two Prodigy non-drug advice leaflets/PILs (Patient Information Leaflets)", Sowerby Centre for Health Informatics at Newcastle University, Newcastle, available at: www.schin.ncl.ac.uk/publications_db/pdf/R-29_full.pdf (accessed 1 May, 2003).
45. Zelman, A. and Leydesdorff, L. (2000), "Threaded e-mail messages in self-organisation and science and technology studies oriented mailing lists", Scientometrics, Vol. 48 No. 3, pp. 361-80.