Table 5.
Methods used by participants to cross-check health information found online from various sources.
| Source type | Number | Methods or sources for cross-checking (n) |
| Search engines | 132 | Health care professionals (40), reliable sources such as official health websites and government sites (28), use another search engine for results (18), research papers found in PubMed or Google Scholar (13), social media—Twitter, TikTok, and Reddit (12), health forums and experiences of others (8), AIa tools (4), online health apps (2), Wikipedia (2), media such as YouTube or podcasts (3), health charity website (1), and paper that came with medication (1) |
| Health-related websites | 82 | Reputable medical and health websites such as WebMD, Mayo Clinic, NHS, patient resource site, government health websites (20), health care professionals (19), multiple sources and websites (19), medical or scientific studies from PubMed, Nature, Lancet, or Google Scholar (11), use another search engine for results (4), check for credentials of sources (3), social media—Reddit (2), AI tool (1), ask family member (1), medical lectures (1), and Wikipedia (1) |
| Social media | 24 | Consult health care professionals (8), various sources from Google search (6), reputable sources such as PubMed and NIHb (4), nonspecific other websites (3), audiobooks (1), books (1), and social media doctors (1) |
| Health community forums | 26 | Various websites from Google search (8), reputable medical and health websites (7), health care professionals (4), academic studies from PubMed (2), other reputable health forums (1), product reviews (1), reference book (1), social media (1), and using TrustPilot to check the reliability of site and information (1) |
| LLMc-based chatbots | 16 | Various sources from Google search (6), reputable medical and health websites such as NIH (6), professionally written publications such as papers and books (3), and podcasts (1) |
| Health applications | 4 | Reputable and trusted websites such as NIH (2) and personal doctor (2) |
| Conversational assistants | 3 | Personal doctor (2) and health forums (1) |
aAI: artificial intelligence.
bNIH: National Institutes of Health.
cLLM: large language model.