Braden O'Neill*, Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom Sue Ziebland*, Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom Jose Valderas, Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain Track: Research Presentation Topic: Consumer empowerment, patient-physician relationship, and sociotechnical issues Presentation Type: Poster presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2013-09-25

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Background: Evolving internet technology has begun to shift the production of health information from commercial organizations and health systems to healthcare users themselves. People increasingly go online to share their own experiences of health and illness and to access information others have posted on the internet, but this behaviour has not been investigated at a population level in the UK setting.

Objective: This study aims to characterize ‘superusers’ of these resources as well as to investigate relationships between engagement with user-generated online health content and other variables.

Methods: We undertook an online cross-sectional survey of 1000 UK internet users. Descriptive and multivariate statistical analyses were used to interpret the data.

Results: About a quarter of respondents reported participating in online support groups (27.8%), using health-related social networking sites (23.8%), and describing a medical condition or problem online in order to get help from other users (23.1%). A majority of respondents reported they never go online for these purposes. Those who did engage with these resources could be divided into three groups by frequency of use: the ‘rare users’ (78.7%) who access and share content less than weekly, ‘users’ (13.9%) who do so weekly, and ‘superusers’ (7.5%) who do so on a daily basis. ‘Superusers’ were found to be younger and to live in more populated areas than users or rare users, and to report more often they are taking care of someone with long-term illness or disability (p<0.05). They were also more likely to report that they discussed the information they found online with their doctor, and to use the internet for varied purposes such as banking and shopping (p<0.01). There were no reported differences in health status between the groups.

Conclusions: Although the survey found reasonably widespread access of user-generated online health content, only a small minority of respondents reported frequently engaging with these resources. As user-generated content proliferates, these ‘superusers’ are likely to shape the health information that others access online. This study raises several key issues for further research, such as whether accessing and sharing user-generated online health content itself is beneficial, or if these benefits are contingent upon talking about this health information with a practitioner. In addition, it is important to understand what effects these resources have on health outcomes.