The impacts of consumer's health topic familiarity in seeking health information online

This study investigates an emerging important issue in health information search, i.e., individual health topic familiarity. The consumer's behaviour in health information search can be examined using language models approach. The results of this study affirm the impacts of familiarity with health topic on search behaviour in health information searches. Each familiarity group in this study exhibits unique search patterns. Delivering health information that matches the user's familiarity is crucial since misunderstanding in health information may lead to fatal consequences. By analysing the consumer's search behaviour, a heath information search system could predict the consumer's familiarity to present more relevant and understandable results and to improve the overall health information search experience