Modeling the consumer health information-seeking behaviors of primary care physicians who treat elderly depressed patients and their caregivers

Objective. Physicians' clinical information-seeking behaviors have been a major target of investigation among the LIS, IS, and biomedical informatics professions for the past twenty or more years. Practicing evidence-based medicine (EBM) has become an expected standard in current health care with EBM curricula incorporated with the didactics in medical school education. This project focuses on the point where evidence-based medicine integrates with the delivery of information to the senior patient in a way that is meaningful to the patient. This study investigates the information-seeking behaviors that seniors' primary care physicians exhibit in order to educate themselves about current consumer health information (reading materials, websites, news, educational narratives) and how they currently disseminate educational information to patients and their caregivers.;Methods. A grounded theory framework was conceived to administer a multimodal method of data collection. Primary care physicians who see elderly patients primarily in a large urban academic setting were recruited to participate in semi-structured interviews, a self-evaluative confidence scale, and an environmental office scan.;Results. The consumer health information-seeking model indicates three information-seeking stages. Each stage is indicative of unique sets of events which occur (1) prior to a patient visit when physicians exhibit self-study exercises such as reading journal and news articles, receiving web updates or listening to television or radio health news stories; (2) during a patient encounter when the physician actively assesses the ability of the patient and/or caregiver to receive and assess information regarding a health topic; and, (3) after the patient visit when the physician may refer a patient and caregiver to websites, written literature or to a follow-up appointment with another health clinician for further information counseling.;Conclusion. The proposed model suggests that physicians of a similar demographic setting exhibit similar patterns of consumer health information-seeking behavior. This study proposes an ISB model of the series of behaviors of a specific group of physicians that suggests how they collect and distribute consumer health information to their elderly patients and caregivers.