Use of Online Health Information by Geriatric and Adult Emergency Department Patients: Access, Understanding, and Trust

Objective The objective was to characterize geriatric patients’ use of online health information (OHI) relative to younger adults and assess their comfort with OHI compared to health information (HI) from their physician. Methods This was a prospective cross-sectional survey study of adult ED patients. The survey assessed patients’ self-reported use of OHI in the past year and immediately prior to ED visit and analyzed differences across 4 age groups: 18-39, 40-64, 65-74, and 75+. Patients’ ability to access, understand, and trust OHI was assessed using a 7 point Likert scale and compared to parallel questions regarding HI obtained from their doctor. Patient use of OHI was compared across age groups. Comfort with OHI and HI obtained from a doctor was compared across age groups using the Kruskall Wallis test. Comparisons between sources of health information were made within age groups using the Wilcoxan signed rank test. Results Of 889 patients who were approached for study inclusion 723 patients (81.3%) completed the survey. The majority of patients had used OHI in the last year in all age groups, but older patients were less likely to have used OHI: age 18-39: 90.3%, 40-64: 85.3%, 65-74: 76.4% and 75+: 50.7%, p