Rafael Ruiz-de-Castaneda, Geneva University Hospitals, Health on the net Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland Natalia Pletneva*, Health on the net Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland Frederic Baroz, Geneva University Hospitals, Health on the net Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland Celia Boyer, Health on the net Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland Track: Research Presentation Topic: Health information on the web: Supply and Demand Presentation Type: Poster presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2013-09-25

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Background: The most popular way to access online health information is via search engines. Most end-users tend to use general search engines (GSO). However, numerous studies have demonstrated a suboptimal quality of such search results with respect to health queries. On the other hand, search engines specialized for the health domain (HSO), which offer a manually selected pool of resources checked for a certain level of quality and transparency, tend to provide search results of better quality, but are less known to end-users.
Objective: The objective of the present study is to identify whether online health information seekers prefer the top results of an HSO or a GSO.
Methods: A specific platform has been developed to enable blind side-by-side comparison of the results of two search engines – Google, a well-known GSO, and Khresmoi, an HSO under development in a large-scale European project. Eight representative real-life health scenarios that an end-user may encounter were designed, and for each of them a general query was determined. The top 10 results for each query were extracted using both search engines under comparison. The participants were presented with a randomly-assigned health scenario, a query and two lists of the search results, and were asked to critically compare based on their own criteria of quality and choose among the two lists and their specific results. Participants were allowed to simultaneously interact with the two lists of results by visiting the sites of interest. Participants completed a total of three different health scenarios each (45-50 minutes) and were thanked for their contribution with a sandwich and a soft drink. Demographic and Internet usage information were also collected from each participant. For the pilot stage of the study, medical students of the University of Geneva (Switzerland) were recruited via email and flyer distribution in the library. In future stages of the study, students of other faculties are expected to be recruited, as well as patients, via patient organizations.
Results: Research in progress. A total of 29 students of medicine participated in the study during daily sessions in a whole a period of 8 days. Results are currently being analysed.
Conclusion: Research in progress. As for now, the expected outcome is that medical students are able to critically evaluate online health content and prefer the health-specific search engine, as it provides results of overall higher quality and transparency, which may not be the case for students of other disciplines.