International Journal of Medical Informatics (2004) 73, 45—55 Positive attitudes and failed queries: an exploration of the conundrums of consumer health information retrieval Qing T. Zeng a, * , Sandra Kogan a , Robert M. Plovnick a , Jonathan Crowell a , Eve-Marie Lacroix b , Robert A. Greenes a a Department of Radiology, Decision Systems Group, Thorn 309, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA b National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA Received 6 October 2003 ; received in revised form 24 December 2003; accepted 29 December 2003 KEYWORDS Information retrieval; Internet; Consumer health; Interview study; Observation study Summary Several studies have found that consumers report a high level of satis- faction with the Internet as a health information resource. Belied by this positive attitude, however, are other studies reporting that consumers were often unsuccess- ful in searching for health information. In this paper, we present an interview and observation study in which we asked health consumers to search for health information on the Internet after first stating their search goals. Upon the conclusion of the session they were asked to evaluate their searches. We found that many consumers were unable to find satisfactory information when performing a specific query, while in general the group viewed health information retrieval (HIR) on the Internet in a positive light. We analyzed the observed search sessions to determine what factors accounted for the failure of specific searches and positive attitudes, and also discussed potential informatics solutions. © 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Consumers and patients are confronted with a plethora of information about health and health care, especially through the proliferation of Web resources [1]. They often have difficulty, however, identifying and accessing answers to their idiosyn- cratic health questions using standard information retrieval techniques [2—4]. This paper focuses on *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-617-7327694; fax: +1-617-7393672. E-mail address: qzeng@dsg.bwh.harvard.edu (Q.T. Zeng). health information retrieval (HIR) via the Internet that is initiated by consumers to meet their spe- cific information needs–—as opposed to educational information prescribed and delivered to consumers over the Internet by health care providers. Several survey studies on consumer HIR pat- terns [5—7] confirm that HIR on the Internet is widespread and that consumers rely on it and ben- efit from it in many ways. Particularly worth noting is the series of interviews and surveys conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project during the past few years [5,8]. The Pew studies reveal that millions of consumers seek health information for themselves and others and that the retrieved 1386-5056/$ — see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2003.12.015