The effect of source credibility on consumers' perceptions of the quality of health information on the Internet
The effect of source credibility on consumers' perceptions of the quality of health information on the Internet
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DOI：
10.1080/14639230600552601
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发表时间：
2006-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Hopson, Danielle
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Bates, Benjamin R.;Romina, Sharon;Hopson, Danielle
最近互联网被用作健康信息的来源，这引发了人们对消费者区分好的信息和坏的信息的能力的担忧。虽然消费者反映他们使用来源可信度来判断信息质量，但一些观察性研究表明，消费者很少使用来源可信度。本研究比较了消费者对归因于可信来源的网页和普通网页在信息质量衡量方面的评价。2005年春季，在美国俄亥俄州的一个区域中心城市分发了一项社区范围的便利性调查。519名参与者被随机分配到六条讨论肺癌预防的信息中的一条：三条信息每条被归因于一个高度可信的国家组织，三条相同的信息每条被归因于一个通用的网页。通过独立样本t检验，将每个属性信息与其对应网页的可信性、真实性、可读性和完整性进行比较。结果表明，归因来源的差异不会对消费者对信息质量的评价产生显著影响。作者建议国家组织提高消费者的可信度，作为通过使用媒体联合渠道来强调可信度来选择更好的在线健康信息的启发式方法。
Recent use of the Internet as a source of health information has raised concerns about consumers' ability to tell 'good' information from 'bad' information. Although consumers report that they use source credibility to judge information quality, several observational studies suggest that consumers make little use of source credibility.This study examines consumer evaluations of web pages attributed to a credible source as compared to generic web pages on measures of message quality.In spring 2005, a community-wide convenience survey was distributed in a regional hub city in Ohio, USA. 519 participants were randomly assigned one of six messages discussing lung cancer prevention: three messages each attributed to a highly credible national organization and three identical messages each attributed to a generic webpage. Independent sample t-tests were conducted to compare each attributed message to its counterpart attributed to a generic webpage on measures of trustworthiness, truthfulness, readability, and completeness.The results demonstrated that differences in attribution to a source did not have a significant effect on consumers' evaluations of the quality of the information.Conclusions. The authors offer suggestions for national organizations to promote credibility to consumers as a heuristic for choosing better online health information through the use of media co-channels to emphasize credibility.