Health information-seeking and perceptions of website credibility: Examining Web-use orientation, message characteristics, and structural features of websites

The study reported here examined perceptions of health website credibility during the process of acquiring health information using the World Wide Web. The relationships between perceptions of website credibility and both message characteristics (e.g., statistics, testimonials) and structural features of health websites (e.g., privacy policy statement, third-party endorsements) were assessed. Additionally, one’s Web-use orientation (i.e., searching or surfing) was evaluated as a moderator of the preceding relationships. The results showed a positive relationship between the presence of structural features and perceptions of website credibility as well as a positive relationship between the presence of message characteristics and attitudes about the health topic. Although Web-use orientation moderated the relationship between message characteristics and perceptions of website credibility, the nature of this relationship was inconsistent with study predictions. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Stephen A. Rains (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 2005) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. Carolyn Donnerstein Karmikel (M.A., Arizona State University) is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. Please direct all correspondence to the first author.