Perception of quality and trustworthiness of Internet resources by personal health information seekers.

OBJECTIVES: This paper focuses on one dimension of personal health information seeking: perception of quality and trustworthiness of information sources. DESIGN: Intensive interviews were conducted using a conversational, unstructured, exploratory interview style. SETTING: Interviews were conducted at 3 publicly accessible library sites in Arizona, Hawaii and Nevada. Participants: Thirty-eight non-experts were interviewed. RESULTS: Three separate and distinct methods used to identify credible health information resources were identified. Consumers may have strong opinions about what they mistrust; use fairly rigorous evaluation protocols; or filter information based on intuition or common sense, eye appeal or an authoritative sounding sponsor or title. CONCLUSIONS: Many people use a mix of rational and/or intuitive criteria to assess the health information they use.