Objective:

to explore and understand patients’ needs, expectations and quality evaluation when searching for health information on the internet.

Design:

qualitative research with focus groups.

Location:

Professor Jesús Marín Primary Care Centre, Molina de Segura. Region of Murcia.

Participants:

three focus groups. N = 17 participants, 11 women and 6 men, aged between 24 and 55, who had recently used the internet to search for health information.

Method:

non-probabilistic convenience sampling of patients from a Primary Care Centre. Recording and subsequent transcription of group discussions. Text analysis by means of segmentation, categorization and speech interpretation. Researchers’ triangulation analysis.

Results:

when patients use the internet as a source of health-related information, accessibility, immediacy and thoroughness are highly valued, as well as the autonomy and the power it provides them in their interactions with the health system. Online searches are simple, short, very specific and, most often, limited to the results displayed on the first screen. Amongst the criteria used when selecting some web pages over the others, there their comprehensibility, design and absence of advertising are notable. In order to assess the reliability of the information, patients’ strategies rely on both contrasting different sources and their intuition.

Conclusions:

the internet not only fulfils the need for information, but also for emotional support, placing patients on an equal footing with professionals. The criteria and strategies used to evaluate the quality and reliability of the information found do not coincide with those defined by professionals. Overall, the experience of online searching for health information is perceived as very positive.

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