Table 7.

Individual factors.

Factors		Criteria
Individuals’ personal situation (n=9) [18,32,40,45,54,56,57,62,64]
	Relevant topics (+a)	Relevance (+)
	Information relevant to one’s needs and search goal (+)	Relevance (+)
	Information relevant to one’s circumstance and applicable (+)	Relevance (+) Usefulness (+)
	Information related to one’s experiences and symptoms (+)	Identification (+)
Prior knowledge and experience of a source (n=14) [13,18,39,42,49,50,53,54,58,59,61,63,65,67]
	Known credible websites (+)	Familiarity (+) Expertise (+)
	Positive previous experience (+)	Familiarity (+) Trustworthiness (+)
	Websites advertised in other media (+)	Familiarity (+)
	Familiar organization (+)	Familiarity (+)
Personal knowledge and beliefs (n=7) [13,18,32,41,56,63,64]
	Consistency with one’s own beliefs and knowledge (+)	Identification (+)
Intuition (n=7) [39,55,57,63,65,66,69]
	Subconscious (+)	Believability (+)
	Common sense (+)	Believability (+)
	Instinct/sensation/gut feeling (+)	Believability (+)

^a+ indicates a positive evaluation of quality or that a criterion is judged positively.