ABSTRACT
The rapid growth of new communication technologies and the increasing public participation in issues of health have led to a surge in both scholarly and practitioner interest in the health uses of the Internet (Dutta-Bergman, 2004a; Rice, 2001). In a survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project in 2003, 66% of Internet users reported having gone online for health or medical information compared to 54% of Internet users in 2000 (Fox & Fallows, 2003). The dramatic rise in the use of the Internet for health care has been propelled by (a) increasing consumer interest in health care (Carlsson, 2000; Dutta-Bergman, 2004b); (b) increasing analytical sophistication of the new consumer (Mittman & Cain, 2001); and (c) growing accessibility of health information on the Internet (Dutta-Bergman, 2004b). The critical role of the Internet as a health information resource has shifted traditional patterns of consumer health information use, physician–patient relationship, health services delivery, and health care policy (Dutta-Bergman, 2003b; Rice, 2001). This new paradigm in health communication triggered by the advent of the Internet calls for a theoretical examination of how consumers use the Internet for health care purposes.
