Toward quality multimorbid health questions for online information seeking in Q&A sites

Abstract

There is an increasing population of health information consumers (HIC) with multimorbidity. Previous studies explored the online information behavior of patients in general or HIC with a specific disease; however, the online information behavior of multimorbid HIC remains poorly researched. The focus of my dissertation research is on the online information behavior of HIC with multimorbidity. Specifically, I aim to explore the online interaction and information seeking behaviors of HIC across different types of Q&A sites. In addition, my dissertation aims to investigate the distinctive features of questions quality posed in Q&A sites from multiple aspects including content, language, and affect. The findings provide implications for designing online Q&A sites to better support health information seeking for HIC with multimorbidity. Further, I aim to develop guidelines for assisting HIC in improving their question quality to meet their health information needs.