Personal health information-seeking: a qualitative review of the literature

Abstract

This qualitative review establishes Personal Health Information-Seeking (PHIS) as a more accurate description of the patient and health education information-seeking activity commonly known as Consumer Health Information Seeking. This review introduces multiple knowledge or domain facets which need to be considered in order to understand the complexities of this behavior by providing a brief overview of key empirical and theoretical work framed around Metoyer-Duran's ethnolinguistic community information theoretical model originally published in 1991, which should guide PHIS system development.