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Information seeking behaviors of parents whose children have life‐threatening illnesses
Author(s) -
Knapp Caprice,
Madden Vanessa,
Marcu Mircea,
Wang Hua,
Curtis Charlotte,
Sloyer Phyllis,
Shenkman Elizabeth
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
pediatric blood and cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.116
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1545-5017
pISSN - 1545-5009
DOI - 10.1002/pbc.22674
Subject(s) - the internet , medicine , psychological intervention , health literacy , literacy , family medicine , health information , internet access , health care , nursing , psychology , world wide web , pedagogy , computer science , economics , economic growth
Objectives For children with life‐threatening illnesses we sought to (1) understand the associations between parental characteristics and preferred health information sources, and (2) assess the e‐health literacy of Internet‐users. Study Design Cross‐sectional, telephone survey of 129 parents whose children are in a pediatric palliative care program in Florida. Results Four out of five parents report that they use the Internet, and 64% of Internet‐users use it daily. Parents who never use the Internet, versus parents who do use the Internet, are predominately Hispanic (50%) and have less than a high school education (64%) ( P ≤ 0.023). Internet‐users have high levels of e‐health literacy; however, they are not confident or are unsure about the quality of information on the Internet. Not having graduated from high school was associated with a decrease in e‐health literacy and using the Internet as the primary information source (vs. doctor as primary source) was associated with an increase in e‐health literacy. Conclusion Parents of children with life‐threatening illnesses have access to and use the Internet as a source of information about their children's health. More information is needed to explore how electronic‐based interventions could be used to impact information seeking of parents whose children are in pediatric palliative care programs. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2011;56:805–811. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.