Table 3.
Evolution between 2014 and 2017 among internet health seekers of (1) health-related search topics, (2) sources of online health-related information, and (3) types of websites used for internet health-related searches.
| Search topics | Survey year 2014, n (%)a | Survey year 2017, n (%)a | P valueb | ||||
| (1) Health-related search topics | n=2036 | n=3917 | |||||
| General health and illnesses, medical news, and treatmentsc | 1022 (71.80) | 2159 (64.72) | .001 | ||||
| Nutrition, weight gain, or eating disorders | 921 (45.03) | 1741 (44.96) | .23 | ||||
| Child health and illness | 625 (33.13) | 975 (27.16) | <.001 | ||||
| Pregnancy or maternity | 268 (14.63) | 388 (11.78) | .02 | ||||
| Tobacco | 240 (12.40) | 245 (7.30) | <.001 | ||||
| Electronic cigarette | —d | 191 (4.97) | — | ||||
| Alcohol | 197 (11.54) | 133 (3.39) | <.001 | ||||
| Contraception and method to avoid pregnancy | 164 (9.60) | 237 (7.38) | .047 | ||||
| Sexually-related health risk | 131 (7.41) | 211 (6.59) | .37 | ||||
| Cannabis and other drugs | 137 (7.12) | 155 (4.36) | .001 | ||||
| (2) Sources of online health-related information | n=1396 | n=3917 | |||||
| Health information website | 816 (55.75) | 2035 (48.83) | <.001 | ||||
| Forum | 432 (32.38) | 801 (21.55) | <.001 | ||||
| active on the forum (n=1233) | 20 (4.41) | 40 (5.44) | .48 | ||||
| Did not pay attention to the source of the information | 370 (27.63) | 1475 (39.74) | <.001 | ||||
| (3) Type of websites used for internet health-related searches (among those who consulted information websites) | n=1478 | n=2442 | |||||
| General health-related website | 443 (30.25) | 937 (38.58) | <.001 | ||||
| Doctissimoe | 371 (25.43) | 733 (29.99) | .009 | ||||
| Social medias (YouTube, Facebook, blogs, TV...) and commercial websites | 209 (13.70) | 285 (11.86) | .16 | ||||
| Wikipedia | 94 (6.16) | 87 (3.16) | <.001 | ||||
| Institutional websites | 103 (5.98) | 212 (8.08) | .02 | ||||
| Websites from health professional, patient association, scientific database | 66 (3.86) | 161 (6.01) | .006 | ||||
| Other | 18 (1.14) | 6 (0.16) | .002 | ||||
aPercentages are adjusted to represent the French population structure.
bOn the basis of chi-square tests.
cFor the “general health and illnesses, medical news, and treatments” topic, the question was asked to a subsample of participants to the study (n=4607).
dNot applicable.
eA popular French website dedicated to general health mentioned by name by a large number of participants.