Faye Scanlan*, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia Sunil Bhar, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Anthony Jorm, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Nicole Reavley, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Track: Research Presentation Topic: Web 2.0 approaches for behaviour change, public health and biosurveillance Presentation Type: Rapid-Fire Presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2014-06-11

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Background
We know that young people use the internet to seek mental health information yet very little is known about their preferred online sources of information or whether accessing e-health content impacts on their help-seeking decisions. The rise of Health 2.0 has led to a rapid growth in websites that aggregate content written by healthcare consumers. Health 2.0 websites that allow healthcare consumers to ‘rate’ their experiences of medical treatments staff and services appear to be particularly popular among e-health users. It remains unclear if such websites are perceived as credible by consumers, and if such perceptions influence their treatment decisions.

Objectives
This exploratory study compared young people’s credibility appraisals of a traditional website, compared to a Health 2.0 website providing depression treatment information. Both websites provided an overview of ‘what works’ for treating depression on a simple rating scale. On the traditional website, each depression treatment was assigned an efficacy rating based on its evidence-base. In contrast, on the ‘Health 2.0’ website, each depression treatment was assigned an overall ‘helpfulness’ rating derived from the aggregated feedback of young people with lived experience of depression (i.e. crowdsourced data). Factors that influenced participants’ credibility appraisals, and the extent to which such appraisals predicted behavioural intention, were examined.

Methods
Participants (n=281) were provided with a vignette asking them to imagine that they had just received a diagnosis of depression and they had gone online to find information to guide their treatment choices. They were randomly allocated to view either the traditional or the Health 2.0 website. Participants completed questionnaires pre- and post- exposure to the website.

Findings
Depression treatment ratings provided on the traditional website were perceived to be significantly more credible than those provided on the Health 2.0 website. Participants exposed to the traditional website also reported greater behavioural intentions toward acting on information accessed.

Conclusions
The implications of these findings are discussed, particularly with reference to the potential strengths and limitations of Health 2.0 websites for young people seeking information on mental health treatments.