Patient-Reported Outcomes in a Nationally Representative Sample of Older Internet Users: Cross-sectional Survey.

Background: The rapid diffusion of the internet has decreased consumer reliance on health care providers for health information and facilitated the patients' ability to be an agent in control of their own health. However, empirical evidence is limited regarding the effects of health-related internet use among older adults, which is complicated by the proliferation of online health and medical sources of questionable scientific accuracy.

Objective: We explore the effects of health-related internet use, education, and eHealth literacy on medical encounters and patient-reported outcomes.

Expansion of Parson's sick role into cyberspace: Patient information consumerism and subjective health in a representative sample of U.S. internet users.

The self-help culture, in the context of the U.S. medical system, demands proactive patient behavior as more responsibility for good health falls on the patient.

Digital Pathways to Positive Health Perceptions: Does Age Moderate the Relationship Between Medical Satisfaction and Positive Health Perceptions Among Middle-Aged and Older Internet Users?

Objectives: We explored the influence of e-trust, e-health literacy, e-health information seeking, and e-health information consumerism on medical satisfaction and positive health perceptions.

Methods: Our sample consisted of 499 randomly selected panel members aged 40-93. We employed hierarchical ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses and structural equation modeling (SEM).

Burnout among direct-care workers in nursing homes: Influences of organisational, workplace, interpersonal and personal characteristics.

Aims And Objectives: The many negative effects of burnout have prompted researchers to better understand the factors contributing to it. The purpose of this paper is to add to this body of knowledge through the study of burnout among direct-care workers in nursing homes.

Background: Perhaps the factor most often associated with employee burnout is the level of staffing-insufficient staffing results in work overload and eventually employee burnout.

Being an Informed Consumer of Health Information and Assessment of Electronic Health Literacy in a National Sample of Internet Users: Validity and Reliability of the e-HLS Instrument.

Background: The Internet, with its capacity to provide information that transcends time and space barriers, continues to transform how people find and apply information to their own lives. With the current explosion in electronic sources of health information, including thousands of websites and hundreds of mobile phone health apps, electronic health literacy is gaining an increasing prominence in health and medical research. An important dimension of electronic health literacy is the ability to appraise the quality of information that will facilitate everyday health care decisions.

Shared Decision-Making in Nursing Homes: Factors Associated With the Empowerment of Direct Care Workers.

Objective: The advantages of empowering direct care workers (DCWs) within nursing homes (NHs) are well documented. Our objective is to identify factors that create DCW empowerment as this has not received adequate attention.

Method: The data come from a larger study focused on the empowerment of DCWs in NHs.

Health information on the web and consumers' perspectives on health professionals' responses to information exchange.

Background: Health information technology, which is sometimes referred to as informaticization of medicine, is changing the extent to which patients become competent producers of their own health by enabling them access to health information anytime and anywhere.

Objective: This research provides preliminary information on users' perceptions of the extent to which use of the Internet for health information impacts medical encounters. We specifically explored the following questions: (1) To what extent perceptions of positive or negative changes in medical encounters are associated with sociodemographic background of online health information seekers, and how often the Internet information is discussed with providers? (2) To what extent is there an association between perceived changes in medical encounters and frequency of referring to the Internet during medical encounters? (3) To what extent is there an association between sociodemographic background of online health information users and frequency of discussing of the Internet information with providers?

Methods: The data for this study was derived from a national sampling of online health and medical information users who participated in the Study of Health and Medical Information in Cyberspace-Survey of User Perceptions (N=710).

I am proud and hopeful: age-based comparisons in positive coping affect among women who use online peer-support.

How do women who seek psychosocial support on the Internet by participating in cancer peer support groups respond to the process of coping with cancer? The current study examines whether older women with cancer have different perceptions about and are influenced to a different extent by online peer support than younger women. The study also explores age-based variations in outlook on coping with cancer as a result of using online support. Separate multivariate regression models estimated the effects of covariates on (1) positive coping affect (PCA) (2) positive coping affect-hopeful (PCA-H), and (3) positive coping affect-proud (PCA-P).

Informational and decisional empowerment in online health support communities: initial psychometric validation of the Cyber Info-Decisional Empowerment Scale (CIDES) and preliminary data from administration of the scale.

Purpose: This article presents initial psychometric validation of an instrument developed to measure cyber informational and decisional empowerment. The article provides preliminary insights into the extent to which cyber patients view the digital environment of peer-based information and support as a resource for informed and empowered participation in self health care management.

Methods: Data come from cancer patients (N = 350) who participated in the Study of Virtual Health Networks for Cancer Patients of the 21st Century.