Ralf Terlutter|Sonja Bidmon|Johanna Röttl
Who Uses Physician-Rating Websites? Differences in Sociodemographic Variables, Psychographic Variables, and Health Status of Users and Nonusers of Physician-Rating Websites
University of Klagenfurt|University of Klagenfurt|University of Klagenfurt
number physicianrating websites prws rising rapidly usage still poor far little discussion kind variables influence usage prwswe focused sociodemographic variables psychographic variables health status prw users nonusersan online survey 1006 randomly selected german patients conducted september 2012 analyzed patients knowledge use online prws also analyzed impact sociodemographic variables gender age education psychographic variables eg feelings toward internet digital literacy health status use nonuse well judgment behavior intentions toward prws survey instrument based existing literature guided several research questionsa total 293 289986 sample knew prw 261 257986 already used prw younger people prone older ones use prws t967227 p02 women used men 2 194 p002 highly educated less educated people 2 4197 p001 people chronic diseases people without 2 156 p02 differences found users nonusers daily private internet use use internet healthrelated information users positive feelings internet webbased applications general t489307 p002 nonusers higher digital literacy t520420 p001 users ascribed higher usefulness prws nonusers t6121161 p001 users trusted information prws greater degree nonusers t5591148 p001 users also likely rate physician prw future t367763 p001 use prw future t6191501 p001 results 2 binary logistic regression analyses demonstrated sociodemographic variables gender age education health status alone predict whether persons prone use prws adding psychographic variables informationseeking behavior variables binary logistic regression analyses led satisfying fit model revealed higher education poorer health status higher digital literacy 10 level significance lower importance family pharmacist healthrelated information higher trust information prws higher appraisal usefulness prws served significant predictors usage prwssociodemographic variables alone sufficiently predict use nonuse prws specific psychographic variables health status need taken account results help designers prws better tailor product specific target groups may increase use prws future