老年人健康信息搜寻行为的现象学研究

Exploring the Health Information Seeking Behavior of Older Adults in Urban China: A Phenomenological Study

为支持健康决策、实现健康老龄化,老年人健康信息搜寻已经成为一种普遍的社会现象,引起了多领域、跨学科的关注。目前关于老年人健康信息搜寻行为的研究以定量研究为主导,研究深度不足,且侧重网络环境,忽视了对整个信息环境的考察。作为探索性研究,本文尝试基于现象学视角研究中国城市老年人的健康信息搜寻行为,使用半结构化访谈收集他们关于健康信息搜寻经历和体验的描述和诠释,并从老年人健康信息搜寻的潜在涵意、基本模式、来源偏好、困难阻碍和网络环境下的健康信息搜寻这5个方面展开质性分析。研究发现,老年人认为健康信息搜寻的意义主要在于疾病防控、享受生活、关爱家人和减轻子女负担,生活世界和健康责任是重要因素;积极主动型和前瞻能动型是老年人健康信息搜寻行为的基本模式,且多数老年人采取两种模式并行的策略;电视节目、网络媒体、纸质媒体和人际网络是老年人经常使用的健康信息来源,医疗机构及其人员、权威电视节目的信任程度最高;自身因素和社会支持因素阻碍了老年人的健康信息搜寻;虽然网络不是老年人搜寻健康信息的主流渠道,但是在老年人的健康信息搜寻中发挥着日益重要的作用。

In the aging society and information age,the health information seeking behavior(HISB)of older adults has become a common social phenomenon that has attracted attention from many research fields and disciplines.However,the previous studies on the HISB of older adults were predominantly quantitative in nature and short on depth and underling details.They were mostly limited to the Internet environment,and therefore overlooked the need to investigate the entire information environment.As an exploratory study,this paper aimed to investigate the HISB of older adults in urban China from the perspective of phenomenology.Five older adults from Wuhan,a provincial capital city in central China,were selected as the sample and semi-structured interviews were used to collect their detailed descriptions and interpretations of HISB in their daily lives.Phenomenological analyses of the following five aspects of older adults’HISB were conducted:underlying meanings,primary patterns,source preferences,difficulties and challenges,and online HISB.The main findings included the following:(1)The elderly believed that the meaning of HISB primarily lies in disease prevention and control,enjoying life,caring for family members,and reducing the burden on children.Life worlds and health responsibility were viewed as the most important elements of HISB.(2)Active HISB and proactive HISB were the primary patterns for older adults in urban China,and most of them adopted both patterns simultaneously in their daily lives.(3)For older adults,television programs,Internet media,print media,and interpersonal networks were the four most often used sources of health information,while medical institutions/health professionals and authoritative television programs were the two most trusted sources of health information.(4)Self-factors and social support factors hindered health information seeking by the elderly.(5)Although the Internet was not a mainstream channel for older adults to search for health information,it does play an increasingly important role in the health information seeking of older adults in China.