Table 4.
Outcome 3: Trust in online health information.
| Author(s), date | Predictor | Specific measure used | Result |
| Zoellner et al, 2009 [76] | Health literacy (NVS) | Trust in food, diet, or nutrition-related online health information | No significant effect of health literacy on trust in online health information. |
| AlGahmdi & Moussa, 2012 [41] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | Fewer individuals with lower education always trust online health information (P<.001). |
| Dart, 2008 [48] | Low socioeconomic (LSE) vs mid-high (MSE) socioeconomic vs university | Trust in online health information | Most respondents in all three groups (LSE, 58.4%; MSE, 63.7%; university, 64.5%) are unsure of the trustworthiness or distrusted online health information (no significance level reported). |
| Hesse et al, 2005 [54] | Educational level | Trust in cancer-related online health information | Education is positively associated with trust in cancer-related online information (P<.01). |
| Ishikawa et al, 2012 [55] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | Participants with high school education or less report less trust in online health information than those with higher education (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.51-0.92). |
| Lawson et al, 2011 [59] | Educational level | Trust in health information from media (including the Internet) | Education is negatively associated with trust in health information from media (no statistics reported). |
| Maguire et al, 2011 [61] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | A lower level of education makes it more than twice less likely that a person with schizophrenia would trust online health information (OR 2.24, P<.01). There are no education-related differences among respondents without schizophrenia. |
| Maraziene et al, 2012 [63] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | People with lower education tend to trust the Internet less than their better educated counterparts (P<.05). |
| Marrie et al, 2013 [63] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | Respondents with a high school degree or less are less likely to have some/a lot of trust in online health information compared to those with an associate’s degree (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.10-1.57), bachelor’s degree (OR 1.37, 95% CI 1.17-1.61), and graduate degree (OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.10-1.55). |
| Nguyen & Bellamy, 2006 [66] | Whites vs Asians (significantly different educational background) | Trust in cancer-related online health information | Asians (lower educational level) are more likely to trust cancer-related online information than whites (OR 0.54, P<.05). |
| Nwagwu, 2007 [67] | In-school vs Out-of-school | Trust in online health information | Out-of-school respondents report the information as trustworthy less often than the in-schools (no statistics reported). |
| Oh et al, 2012 [68] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | Respondents with 12 or fewer years of education are 3.1 times less likely to trust online health information a lot than were those with more than 12 years (95% CI 1.1-8.6). |
| Richter et al, 2009 [69] | Educational level | Confidence in online health information | No significant effect of education on confidence in online health information. |
| Smith, 2011 [70] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | Education is positively associated with trust in online health information (P<.001). |
| Soederberg Miller & Bell, 2012 [71] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | Education is significantly correlated with trust in online health information (P<.01) |
| Yan, 2010 [74] | Educational level | Confidence in online health information | No significant effect of educational level on confidence in online health information. |
| Ye, 2011a [24] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | Educational level is not correlated to trust in online health information. |
| Zhao, 2010 [75] | US-born vs Foreign-born (significantly different educational background) | Trust in online health information | Foreign-born Hispanics have lower trust in online health information compared with their US-born counterparts (higher educational level) (55% vs 86%, P=.016). |
| Zulman et al, 2011 [77] | Educational level | Trust in online health information | Those with high school or less are significantly less likely to trust online health information than college graduates (OR 2.47, P<.001). |
| Clayman et al, 2010 [47] | Other skills-based proxies for health literacy – Comfort speaking English | Trust in online health information | Those less comfortable speaking English report lower trust in online health information compared with those more comfortable speaking English (P<.01). |
| Ye, 2011a [24] | Other skills-based proxies for health literacy – Hard to understand health information | Trust in online health information | The harder the health information is to understand, the less trust there is in online health information, F 1,100=11.85, P<.01; β=.07, SE 0.02). |
aStudy reported twice because it described the impact of both educational level and other skill-based proxies for health literacy on trust in online health information.