Consumer informatics: elderly persons and the Internet

This paper reports the findings from a study designed to determine whether, when appropriately trained, older adults would use the Internet to gather healthcare information and actively seek information that could directly affect their own treatment and care. Results show that older adults are willing to use the Internet to locate health information. However, familiarity with Internet-based healthcare resources did not lead participants to adopt significant levels of Internet use or change the way they participated in their own healthcare. These results suggest that the Internet may not have as great an influence on how individuals manage their healthcare, and point out the fact that seniors 65 and over may still cling to a paternalistic model when working with their own healthcare provider.