Teens struggle to find accurate, useful health informat...( ne misspelled word. Some search engines...),Health

Even when students found a Web site that contained the answer to a question, they didn't always find the answer. In the Paxil question, many of the students ended up at the drug company's Web site, a site dense with links and information. They then had difficulty finding the link that describes side effects such as fatigue.

"One of our suggestions is that site designers look at why people are using their site and how they can make it more tailored to the user's needs," Hansen says. "Sites targeted at students need to be especially aware of this and make their sites well-organized, concise and understandable. Long paragraphs, too many links and difficult vocabulary all make it more likely that teens won't find the information they need, even if it's within the site."

Of the 68 searches, seven were abandoned when the students gave up or the class period ended. Forty-seven searches were successful and 14 were either partially successful or completely incorrect. Every student answered at least one question correctly and the older teens were more likely to be successful than the younger ones.

School staff selected students for the study who were strong academically and who were comfortable using computers and searching for information on the Internet. Study authors say this suggests students less familiar with Internet searching would have even more trouble. Each student was tested individually for a maximum of one hour.

The researchers offer several suggestions that both teens and Web designers can take to help improve access to health information. For example, teens can be taught better search strategies. This may mean using directories within search engines that drill down into specific topics, or teens could learn to formulate and refine search terms used on general-purpose search engine
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Contact: Nicole Fawcett
nfawcett@umich.edu
734-764-2220
University of Michigan Health System
17-Oct-2003