Online health search, physician trust, and gender: Factors influence physician visit

Background: Online health inquiries have an impact on decisions or actions, one of which is whether to see a doctor when one is sick. Doctor trust may influence one's decision of going to a doctor as well. This study intended to know: 1) the valence of the relationship between online health search and doctor office visit; 2) if there are interactive effects between online health search and physician trust on physician visit; and 3) if gender plays a role in these relationships.

Methods:205 college students responded to an online survey. Participants answered questions measuring their frequency of online health search, trust in physicians, and tendency to visit doctor's office when they are sick.

Results: A 2 x 2 ANOVA was conducted to examine one's likelihood of visiting doctor's office when one is ill, controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, internet use years, and school year. Both search and trust were positively associated with visit. Those who searched more frequently reported significantly more visits than did those who searched less frequently, and those who had higher level of trust reported significantly more visits than did those with lower level of trust. There was no interaction between search and trust. When gender was added into the analysis, the main effect for search disappeared. The only predictor of visit was trust.

Conclusions: Surprisingly, online health search is positively related to doctor visit, though the relationship is moderated by gender. Doctor trust is one major reason why one visits (or not visit) his/her doctor.