Health Knowledge Insufficiency Motivates Health Information Seeking

Health information on the Internet is available to help people increase their knowledge and take more responsibility for their health. This study explored how people that vary in severity of health anxiety search for online health information. A cross-sectional research design was employed to evaluate the relationship between online health information seeking and health anxiety. This study surveyed 275 male and 234 female participants aged 15–67 years living in New Taipei City. The results showed that health anxiety is an effective predictor of health information seeking and that health information seeking is motivated by a health knowledge insufficiency. They also showed a difference between the frequency of online health information seeking and the number of websites visited. In conclusion, online health information seeking is a purposive behavior that can be affected by health anxiety.