Investigation of the Information-Seeking Behavior of Hospitalized Patients at the General Hospital of Corfu

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate the information-seeking behavior of hospitalized patients in a peripheral hospital in Greece, based on Wilson’s theoretical model. After a thorough literature review, we report on the results of a cross-sectoral sur\vey that was conducted based on Wilson’s macro-model of information-seeking behavior. The survey exploits the feedback we obtained from 150 hospitalized patients in the General Hospital of Corfu island in Greece. For the feedback collection, we relied on a structured questionnaire that was distributed to patients and correlates information-seeking behavior of hospitalized patients’ clinical data and eHealth Literacy. According to our findings, the most commonly recorded factors that pertain to information needs of hospitalized patients relate to treatment information, procedural information as well as information about the patients’ rights and support. The main information sources to which patients turn for receiving information are digital scientific sources, health professionals, other patients, insurance funds, family members and friends and the media. Concerning the most frequent obstacles associated with the information-seeking process, these account primarily to individual, interpersonal and environmental factors. Finally, the research came to a conclusion with the adaptation of Wilson’s theoretical model to hospitalized patients by confirming the original-initial model. The findings of our survey reveal the necessity to equip hospital units with adequate staff and to develop programs that offer updated information services to the hospitalized population. Moreover, our survey suggests that the availability of advanced health-related information services can empower the general population toward establishing e-Health literacy skills as well as toward increasing their level of satisfaction from the quality of the health services offered. In this direction, a clinical librarian program would empower hospitals worldwide to make their patients literate about health-related information.