=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2629/5_poster_enwald.pdf
|storemode=property
|title=Taking Health Information Behaviour into Account in User-Centered Design of e-health Services - Findings from an Ongoing Research Project
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2629/5_poster_enwald.pdf
|volume=Vol-2629
|authors=Meidi Enwald,Kristiina Eriksson-Backa,Noora Hirvonen,Isto Huvila
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/persuasive/EnwaldEHH20
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==Taking Health Information Behaviour into Account in User-Centered Design of e-health Services - Findings from an Ongoing Research Project==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2629/5_poster_enwald.pdf
Taking health information behaviour into account in
user- centered design of e-health services - findings
from an ongoing research project
Heidi Enwald1,2, Kristiina Eriksson-Backa 2, Noora Hirvonen 1,2, Isto Huvila 3
1
Information Studies, P.O.Box 8000, FI-90014 University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
2
Information Studies, Åbo Akademi University, Tuomiokirkontori 3, FI-20500 Turku, Finland
3
Information Studies, Box 625, Uppsala University, 75126 Uppsala, Sweden
ORCID of the first author: 0000-0003-1953-2157
Keywords: E-health, health information behavior, older adults, user centered
design, Finland
1 Introduction
This poster presents key findings from ongoing work within the Finnish research pro-
ject “Taking Health Information Behavior into Account: implications of a neglected
element for successful implementation of consumer health technologies on older
adults“, funded by the Academy of Finland (2015-2020). There is a need for patients’
involvement and for the content of e-health services to be more consumer-focused. In-
dividuals interaction with health information and their capacities to do so (i.e., health
information literacy) could be used for tailoring health communication and as a basis
for personalized and user-centered system design. The project aims at giving founda-
tions for development of e-health services that are comprehensible, manageable, mean-
ingful, and user friendly.
2 Methods
In the project both quantitative and qualitative methods, including postal and web sur-
veys and focus group interviews have been utilized, and a systematic literature review
has been carried out. Furthermore, a large population-based survey among older adults
has been conducted at June 2019.
3 Results
According to the systematic review conducted, e-health research tends to focus on sys-
tem usability rather than the usefulness, purposes, benefits, or value of eHealth services
to their users. Overall, heterogeneous body of research exists on older adults’ views on
e-health services. Common themes found could be identified: e-health service uses,
Persuasive 2020, Adjunct proceedings of the 15 th International Conference on Persuasive
Technology. Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
2
enablers and barriers, and outcomes. Moreover, the methodological approach of the
study was associated with the type of findings reported, and there seems to be a posi-
tivity bias particularly in quantitative studies. [1]
Older adults’ preferences and motivation of ordering a copy of their medical rec-
ord, and using medical records -based e-health and information services in the future,
have been studied in this project (see e.g., [2]). In addition, a focus-group study on
views of users of the Finnish patient-accessible electronic health record My Kanta,
showed, e.g., that concerns and barriers relating to use were socio-techno-informational
and tightly associated with the contents of the system. Improved security, usability and
additional information and functions might increase use. Coherent and timely infor-
mation from health care providers should be available in the e-health services.
Health information literacy and technology use across age groups has been compared
with several quantitative surveys. To summarize, older adults tend to value health in-
formation but have trouble understanding health terminology. Health information liter-
acy is not necessarily improving or declining by age, but adapting to the challenges of
advanced age. Older adults with negative attitudes towards and having less experience
with mobile information technology seem to be likely to have poor self-estimated health
information literacy skills [3].
A survey of online diabetes risk test users showed, e.g., that the respondents’ general
health information-seeking style was strongly linked to their health-promoting behavior
when the test showed an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes.
The research group has also taken part in the discussion on how to support inter-
disciplinary dialogue between information behavior research and systems and service
design [4].
4 Discussion
The project takes a holistic view on e-health and its use and users and points out that
the information behavior of human beings, technology, and the socioeconomic envi-
ronment are all connected to each other. The results can inform research within the field
of health information behavior and e-health, but also other subjects such as human-
computer interaction, medical informatics, public health or computer science. On the
practical level the project provides information on user behavior and practices, as well
as the actual utility value of the studied e-health services and the results can be useful
for both improving existing services and for the development of new ones.
References
1. Hirvonen, N., Känsäkoski, H., Enwald, H., Eriksson-Backa, K., Huhta, A.-M. & Huvila, I.:
Older adults’ views on eHealth services: a systematic review on scientific journal articles.
International Journal of Medical Informatics 135, 235-248 (2020).
2. Huvila, I., Enwald, H., Eriksson-Backa, K., Hirvonen, N., Nquyen, H. & Scanburra, I.: An-
ticipating aging: Older adults reading their medical records. Information Processing & Man-
agement 54(3), 394-407 (2018).
3
3. Enwald, H., Hirvonen, N., Kangas, M., Keränen, N., Jämsä, T., Huvila, I. & Korpelainen,
R.: Relationship between everyday health information literacy and attitudes towards mobile
technology among older people. In: S. Kurbanoğlu, et al. (Eds.) Information Literacy in the
Workplace: 5th European Conference, ECIL 2017.Saint-Malo, France, 18-21.9.2017. (Com-
munications in Computer and Information Science Series Vol. 810, pp. 450-459.) Springer
(2017).
4. Huvila, I., Enwald, H., Eriksson-Backa, K., Liu, Y.-H. & Hirvonen, N.: Information behav-
iour and practices research informing technology and service design. Proceedings of the
Association for Information Science and Technology 56(1), 541-545. ASIS&T 2019, Mel-
bourne, Australia (2019).