Health information practices of young parents

How Resources Combining Expertise and Social Support Help Breastfeeding Women Address Self-Doubt and Increase Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy: A Mixed-Methods Study

Existing research on parental information literacy focuses on parents' ability to evaluate information. This approach does not account for conflicting or unwanted information and obscures the emotional impact of unsought information. We aimed to (1) document the sources women use most frequently for accessing breastfeeding information, (2) explore the reasons women choose some sources over others, (3) test the relationship between source characteristics and breastfeeding self-efficacy, and (4) determine the extent to which four source characteristics - competence, trustworthiness, goodwill, and social support - predict breastfeeding self-efficacy. This study was conducted in two phases. The first phase consisted of interviews and focus groups, which we analyzed inductively using a grounded theory approach. In phase two, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of women who were currently breastfeeding, collecting data on the source credibility and social support associated with the source they use most frequently and the participants' breastfeeding self-efficacy. We used multiple regression to analyze our survey data. The frequency with which our participants encountered conflicting and unsought prompted them to view sources that combine expertise and social support as ideal. However, these sources are often difficult to access, leading to a reliance on online sources. This compromise has implications for breastfeeding tenure, as both competence and social support predicted breastfeeding self-efficacy. This study demonstrates how emotional aspects of information seeking shape women's preferred sources, how accessibility limits the use of preferred sources, and how source competence and social support influence breastfeeding self-efficacy.

The Usage and Trustworthiness of Various Health Information Sources in the United Arab Emirates: An Online National Cross-Sectional Survey

Background: The increase in the quality and availability of health information as well as the accessibility of Internet-based sources, has driven growing demand for online health information. Information preferences are influenced by many factors, including information needs, intentions, trustworthiness, and socioeconomic variables. Hence, understanding the interplay of these factors helps stakeholders provide current and relevant health information sources to assist consumers in assessing their healthcare options and making informed medical decisions. Aims: To assess the different sources of health information sought by the UAE population and to investigate the level of trustworthiness of each source. Methods: The study adopted a descriptive online cross-sectional design. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from UAE residents aged 18 years or above between July 2021 and September 2021. Health information sources, their trustworthiness, and health-oriented beliefs were explored through univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis in Python. Results: A total of 1083 responses were collected, out of which 683 (63%) were females. Doctors were the first source of health information (67.41%) before COVID-19, whereas websites were the first source (67.22%) during the pandemic. Other sources, such as pharmacists, social media, and friends and family, were not prioritized as primary sources. Overall, doctors had a high trustworthiness of 82.73%, followed by pharmacists with a high trustworthiness of 59.8%. The Internet had a partial trustworthiness of 58.4%. Social media and friends and family had a low trustworthiness of 32.78% and 23.73%, respectively. Age, marital status, occupation, and degree obtained were all significant predictors of Internet usage for health information. Conclusions: The population in the UAE commonly obtains health information from doctors who have been shown to have the highest trustworthiness; this is despite it not being the most common source used.

Exploring the early manifestation of information poverty in young children

Information poverty is widely recognised as having a negative impact upon peoples’ health and wellbeing, and socioeconomic prosperity; however, whilst an issue of significant societal concern evidenced across a wide variety of adult groups and socioeconomic contexts, no studies have been previously undertaken with children. This appears a significant oversight given that many children across the globe are considered multi-dimensionally poor. This study thus sought to explore the possibility of information poverty amongst children. One hundred fifty-six children (aged 6–8) from five UK primary schools participated in a series of practical exercises exploring their information behaviours, and 34 parents and teachers were interviewed to provide further insights. Finding’s evidence self-protective information behaviours and unmet information needs amongst children aged 6–8; both characteristics of an impoverished information state. Whilst much can be explained in developmental terms (i.e. in relation to child age and emergent literacies), much can also be explained in information poverty terms encompassing issues of both information access and use. Notably, approximately half of our child participants considered themselves to be, in general, unsuccessful information seekers; and contrasts with the views of our adult participants who majority believed that children are, in general, successful information seekers. This paper provides the first evidence of information poverty in young children, and provides further insights into the role of parents in supporting their children’s information needs and shaping their developing information behaviours, with parental mediation of child media use appearing particularly problematic. Enduring inequalities in information access are also highlighted. Beyond call for further global research, a public communication campaign to increase awareness of child information poverty and contributory factors is recommended as an immediate priority.

Everyday life as an evolving context of information behaviour

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour by examining how researchers have approached this issue. To this end, particular attention is directed to how they have characterized everyday life as a constellation of work-related and non-work constituents.

Design/methodology/approach

Evolutionary concept analysis was conducted by focussing on 40 studies on the topic. It is examined how the conceptualizations of everyday life and the relationships between work-related and non-work constituents have been evolved since the 1990s. The analysis is based on the comparison of the similarities and differences between the characterizations of the above constituents.

Findings

Early conceptualizations of everyday life as a context of information behaviour were largely based on Savolainen's model for everyday life information seeking. Later studies have proposed a more holistic approach to everyday life in times when the boundaries between work-related and free-time activities have become blurred, due to the growing use of networked information technologies and telecommuting. Since the late 1990s, the understanding about the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour has become more nuanced; thanks to a more detailed identification of the overlaps of work-related and non-work constituents.

Research limitations/implications

As the study is based on a sample of studies examining the relationships of work-related and non-work constituents, the findings cannot be generalized to concern the contextual nature of everyday life as a whole.

Originality/value

The study pioneers by offering an in-depth analysis of the nature of everyday life as a context of information behaviour.

The information behaviours of disadvantaged young first-time mothers

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the information behaviours of socioeconomically disadvantaged young first-time mothers, an understudied and at-risk group (health and well-being).

Design/methodology/approach

Questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with 39 young mothers (aged up to 25 years of age) from UK areas of multiple deprivations.

Findings

Our participants' preferred sources of information are interpersonal sources with which they have formed close supportive relationships. Support groups are important sources of interpersonal connection, but young mothers are reluctant to attend groups involving older mothers. With the exception of support group staff and health visitors, institutional and professional information sources are used very little. Societal stigma is a significant issue influencing behaviours, but issues of institutional bureaucracy, information overload, conflicting information and practical access are also reported. A further key factor influencing behaviour is self-identity.

Research limitations/implications

Findings should not be considered representative of young mothers as a whole as not all young mothers are disadvantaged. As our participants identified as ethnically white, findings also cannot speak to the additional barriers experienced by women of colour. Further studies with further population groups are recommended. More broadly, further studies exploring the influence of self-identity on people's information behaviours are also recommended.

Practical implications

Findings provide practical direction for health and welfare services, and public libraries, to better support young mothers.

Originality/value

Findings contribute to conceptual and practical understanding of information poverty in the socio-ecological context. Findings also evidence the role of self-identity in shaping people's information behaviours.

The missing link: Towards an integrated health and information literacy research agenda

Information forms one of the main commonalities shared between definitions of health literacy. However, information literacy research, which centres how people become informed within a specific setting, has been almost completely sidelined from health literacy scholarship. This oversight risks limiting understanding of how health literacy is practised as well as narrowing research discourses. It also forms a missed opportunity as the recent sociocultural turn creates a valuable point of synergy between each field. This paper carries out a narrative literature review to identify key areas where information literacy research could help to extend understanding about how people interact with information within health contexts. Centred on exploring theoretical and empirical work, the paper uses examples from literature to suggest that assumptions related to how information, models of information use, social dynamics of information environments, the outcomes of information activity and critical approaches to information practice are understood impact the scope and the reach of health literacy research and practice. The goal of this paper is to establish an initial, shared research agenda that places health and information literacy in dialogue rather than in isolation from each other.

Serious information in hedonic social applications: affordances, self-determination and health information adoption in TikTok

Purpose

Hedonic social applications have been increasingly popular among health information consumers. However, it remains unclear what motivates consumers to adopt health information in hedonic applications when they have alternative choices of more formal health information sources. Building on the self-determination theory and the affordances lens, this study aims to investigate how different affordances on hedonic social applications affect consumers' basic psychological needs and further influence their intention to adopt health information on such applications.

Design/methodology/approach

As TikTok demonstrated great potential in disseminating health information, we developed a model that we analyze using the PLS-SEM technique with data collected from a valid research sample of 384 respondents with health information seeking or encountering experience in TikTok.

Findings

The results suggested that health information adoption in hedonic social applications is significantly predicted by the satisfaction of consumers' basic psychological needs, namely autonomy, relatedness and competence. Moreover, the satisfaction of basic psychological needs is positively affected by affordances provided by the hedonic social applications. The hedonic affordances positively influence autonomy satisfaction, while the connective affordances positively affect relatedness satisfaction, and the utilitarian affordances positively support competence satisfaction.

Originality/value

The study indicates that hedonic social applications such as TikTok could be an important channel for consumers to access and adopt health information. The study contributes to the literature by proposing a theoretical model that explains consumers' health information adoption and yields practical implications for designers and service providers of hedonic social applications.

The social media use of Muslim women in the Arabian Peninsula: insights into self-protective information behaviours

Purpose

The purpose is to provide insight into the social media related information behaviours of Muslim women within Arab society, and to explore issues of societal constraint and control, and impact on behaviours.

Design/methodology/approach

The study conducted semi-structured interviews with Muslim women resident within the capital city of a nation within the Arabian Peninsula.

Findings

Social media provides the study participants' with an important source of information and social connection, and medium for personal expression. However, use is constrained within sociocultural boundaries, and monitored by husbands and/or male relatives. Pseudonym accounts and carefully managed privacy settings are used to circumvent boundaries and pursue needs, but not without risk of social transgression. The authors provide evidence of systematic marginalisation, but also of resilience and agency to overcome. Self-protective acts of secrecy and deception are employed to not only cope with small world life, but to also circumvent boundaries and move between social and information worlds.

Research limitations/implications

Findings should not be considered representative of Muslim women as a whole as Muslim women are not a homogenous group, and Arabian Peninsula nations variously more conservative or liberal than others.

Practical implications

Findings contribute to practical and conceptual understanding of digital literacy with implications for education programmes including social, moral and intellectual aspects.

Originality/value

Findings contribute to conceptual and practical understanding of information poverty, evidencing structural inequalities as a major contributory factor, and that self-protective information behaviours, often considered reductive, can also be expansive in nature.

Transgender and nonbinary individuals and ICT-driven information practices in response to transexclusionary healthcare systems: a qualitative study

OBJECTIVE

This qualitative research examines how transgender and gender nonbinary (T/GNB) persons from South Carolina navigate informational barriers within healthcare systems. This navigation can be described through the lens of information practices, or how T/GNB participants create, seek, use, and share information to achieve desired healthcare outcomes. Special focus is given to the roles of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in shaping these practices.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The research utilizes participant data from semistructured interviews and focus groups conducted with 26 T/GNB individuals focusing on their health information practices. Data analysis utilized emic/etic coding and the constant comparative method to identify themes describing transexclusionary information barriers and respondent ICT-led information practices.

RESULTS

Findings note healthcare systems producing cisnormativity by design resulting in T/GNB individuals viewing healthcare spaces as exclusionary. Exclusionary barriers included over reliance on medical, expert authority ignoring T/GNB embodiment, and a lack of contextual perspective to identities. In response, T/GNB seek, create, use, and share information via ICTs to challenge exclusionary practices.

DISCUSSION

T/GNB ICT use addresses systemic barriers within healthcare systems suggesting a need to reframe healthcare systems through the lens of design justice, one that values T/GNB agency in understanding and producing health knowledge.

CONCLUSION

While many healthcare providers are not intentionally being transexclusionary, the design of healthcare information systems rely on cisnormative values, thus excluding many T/GNB from accessing healthcare in comfortable and safe ways. Shifting toward the values and practices of T/GNB as informed by ICT use will afford healthcare providers ways to undo barriers to care.

Role of gatekeeping on Facebook in creating information benefits for vulnerable, pregnant women in the rural United States

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate why and how gatekeepers on social networking sites (SNS) create what types of information benefits for gated, vulnerable, pregnant women in the rural United States.

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative study adopts “network gatekeeping” as a theoretical lens to implement a combination of deductive and inductive qualitative approaches for analyzing in-depth interviews with members and administrators of a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) Group on Facebook with a membership of over 500 pregnant women in rural Appalachia in the United States.

Findings

The VBAC group administrators' (a) vision of transforming the existing doctor-centric birth culture to a more mother-centric birth culture in the rural United States, (b) expertise and experience in healthcare and (c) valuing scientific, evidence-based information lead to recurring, authoritative but evolving manifestations of combinations of nine network gatekeeping mechanisms. Implementations of nine network gatekeeping mechanisms (i.e. localization, infrastructure, cost effect, channeling, censorship, regulation, editorial, user-interaction and value adding mechanisms) help VBAC group administrators control interactions and information on the group, thereby creating 16 information benefits for the gated, vulnerable women before, during and after pregnancy.

Originality/value

This sociological study of network gatekeeping posits and proves an “information value chain” (i.e. Why to create information benefits? – How to create information benefits? – What types of information benefits?) for vulnerable, pregnant women on Facebook. Rarely any study shows the role of network gatekeeping mechanisms in implementing an information value chain.

Discursive power and resistance in the information world maps of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual community leaders

Purpose

This qualitative study explores how discursive power shapes South Carolina lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities' health information practices and how participants resist this power.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 28 LGBTQIA+ community leaders from South Carolina engaged in semi-structured interviews and information world mapping–a participatory arts-based elicitation technique–to capture the context underlying how they and their communities create, seek, use and share health information. We focus on the information world maps for this paper, employing situational analysis–a discourse analytic method for visual data–to analyze them.

Findings

Six themes emerged describing how discursive power operates both within and outside of LGBTQIA+ communities: (1) producing absence, (2) providing unwanted information, (3) commoditizing LGBTQIA+ communities, (4) condensing LGBTQIA+ people into monoliths; (5) establishing the community's normative role in information practices; (6) applying assimilationist and metronormative discourses to information sources. This power negates people's information practices with less dominant LGBTQIA+ identities and marginalized intersectional identities across locations such as race and class. Participants resisted discursive power within their maps via the following tactics: (1) (re)appropriating discourses and (2) imagining new information worlds.

Originality/value

This study captures the perspectives of an understudied population–LGBTQIA+ persons from the American South–about a critical topic–their health–and frames these perspectives and topics within an informational context. Our use of information world mapping and situational analysis offers a unique and still underutilized set of qualitative methods within information science research.

The complex information needs of disadvantaged young first-time mothers: insights into multiplicity of needs

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to holistically explore the information needs of socioeconomically disadvantaged young first-time mothers and associated issues of complexity.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper used survey and semi-structured field interviews with 39 young mothers (aged 15–23) from UK areas of multiple deprivations.

Findings

Participants reported multiple and complex needs spanning interrelated topics of parenting, poverty and personal development. In the majority of instances, participants were either unsure of their ability to meet their needs or needed help with needs, and several described situations of considerable anxiety and stress. Multiplicity is identified and conceptualised as an important factor contributing to complexity, including three component elements: simultaneous occurrence of needs (concurrency), relationships between needs (interconnectivity) and evolving needs (fluidity). In various combinations, these elements influenced a mother's actions and/or ability to selectively attend to needs, with multiple needs often competing for attention, and compounding issues of cognitive load and affect.

Research limitations/implications

This study draws attention to multiplicity of needs as an understudied topic within human information behaviour and calls for further research into how people recognise and attend to complex needs and influencing factors.

Practical implications

This study raises important questions regarding how we approach complexity of information needs in our design and delivery of information systems and services.

Originality/value

Evidences disadvantaged young mothers to have more extensive and complex information needs than previously understood, and identifies and conceptualised multiplicity as an important factor contributing to the complexity of information needs during major life transitions such as motherhood.

Periodic Information-seeking Behaviors of First-time Mothers in China

First-time mothers have a unique and varied set of information needs, but at present, these needs are seldom adequately addressed by libraries in China. As a first step in making libraries more helpful to this group, this study reports the results of a series of interviews aimed at understanding new mothers’ current information seeking behaviors. Thirty-seven first-time mothers (children from first year of birth to six years of age) took part in semi-structured in-depth interviews, answering questions about their information demand, information source selection (and factors influencing this selection), and obstacles encountered in the process of information search. It was found that first-time mothers’ information-seeking behavior varies from stage to stage, e. g. between pregnancy and the immediate postpartum period. Internet search plays an important role because of its perceived convenience and accessibility, but trust is the key factor during the process of information selection, regardless of source. Overall, the mothers we interviewed seldom use the library. This paper puts forward some suggestions to remedy that situation: libraries might consider opening a first-time-mothers reading room, increasing cooperative promotions with other institutions, providing diversified service projects, and organizing reading-promotion activities for first-time mothers at different stages. If implemented, these suggestions promise to help mothers navigate the transitions of pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare.

Visual analysis of information world maps: An exploration of four methods

Information researchers increasingly use participatory, arts-based methods to better understand the social contexts of individuals and populations. However, it remains rare to engage in qualitative analysis of the resulting visual artefacts. This article explores approaches to analysing visual media generated through a specific arts-based method, information world mapping (IWM), an interdisciplinary draw-and-talk technique that elicits data about individuals’ social information worlds. Here, we test four approaches to analysing visual media generated through IWM: directed qualitative content analysis (QCA), compositional interpretation, conceptual analysis and visual discourse analysis using situational analysis (SA). QCA was effective in creating an overview of participants’ information practices, yet raised concern regarding interpretive bias. Using an inductive taxonomy for compositional interpretation, we identified genre conventions for IWMs. Conceptual analysis resulted primarily in a reflection of the research procedures and epistemology. SA, while time-consuming, generated a large amount of rich data, including discourses and power relations that were not identified in previous analysis of textual data. In a reversal of our previous stance that cautioned against IWM analysis, we encourage other researchers to consider integrated or secondary visual analysis of IWMs.