What health information are consumers seeking? A comparison between two types of online Q&A sites

Abstract

Online questioning and answering (Q&A) sites have emerged as an alternative source for serving individuals’ health information needs. Despite studies on analyzing user-generated content in online Q&A sites, there is an insufficient understanding of health consumers from the perspective of health-consumer types, information needs and number of questions. Additionally, empirical comparisons of different Q&A platforms are scarce. This research investigates types of health consumers, information seeking needs, and number of questions for asking questions across two types of online Q&A platforms. Empirical analyses of 624 heath questions collected from Yahoo! Answers and WebMD reveal several important differences. In comparison, there were more questions about adverse drug reactions on WebMD, and more questions about seeking similar experiences on Yahoo! Answers. The findings have design implications for online Q&A sites to better support health information seeking.