Connecting Health and Humans K. Saranto et al. (Eds.) IOS Press, 2009 © 2009 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.3233/978-1-60750-024-7-731
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When and Why Do People Post Questions about Health and Illness on Web2.0-based Q&A Sites in Japan Kazuhiro NAKAYAMAa, Arisa NISHIOb, Yukari YOKOYAMAc, Yoko SETOYAMAa , Taisuke TOGARId and Yuki YONEKURAc a
St. Luke's college of Nursing, Tokyo, Japan bNagoya University, Nagoya, Japan c The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan dYamaguchi University, Ube, Japan
Abstract. Web2.0-based Q&A sites such as Yahoo! Answers and OKWave are the fastest-growing sites in Japan. Such sites exploit user-generated content and information-sharing methods and have established point systems and user ratings to reward participation. We analyzed the questions and answers concerning health and illness posted on these sites. We found that the people who posted questions desired to obtain information related to their health problems from various sources, and to seek validation of this information not only by experts but also by people who have undergone similar experiences. Keywords. Web 2.0, Q&A site, user-generated content, health information, Web credibility
Introduction The word ‘Web 2.0’ refers to Web sites whose contents are submitted by the general population. Web2.0-based Q&A sites such as Yahoo! Answers (called “Yahoo! Chiebukuro” in Japan, which displays over 17 million questions) and OKWave (which displays over 3.5 million questions) are the fastest-growing sites in Japan. Such sites exploit user-generated content and information-sharing methods and have established point systems and user ratings to reward participation. Method We analyzed the questions and answers concerning health and illness posted on these sites. However, since these sites have at least 0.1 million such questions, we particularly focused on questions related to health and medical information on the Web. We searched the category ‘health’ by looking for questions containing the following keywords ‘internet’, ‘web’, ‘site’, or ‘page’. Results Questions that were posted most frequently were those for which the users did not fetch answers through Web search. Some people were confused because of discrepancies among different information sources, including their doctors’ comments. Most of the patients who posted questions seemed to not have enough time to discuss their issues with doctors or other health professionals. Further, they were searching for credible sources of information on the Web. Conclusion We found that the people who posted questions desired to obtain information related to their health problems from various sources, and to seek validation of this information not only by experts but also by people who have undergone similar experiences. Email Address for Correspondence:
[email protected]
