Health information seeking behavior of the population in Majmaah, Saudi Arabia

Background: The Internet nowadays is the most popular and time-saving tool for gaining a lot of information. This is true for health knowledge also, because almost everyone is keen to know about their health disorders, treatment, healthcare centers and also how to stay healthy. There was a felt need to study the prevalence among the population of the access to Internet for health-related information. Objectives: The main objective of this study was to investigate the different health information seeking behaviors among the population of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Methodology: This is a cross-sectional, observational and population-based study in Majmaah city. Based on the (prevalence rate = 50%) previous articles, the sample size was calculated equal to 384. Data was collected by pre-tested, close ended, interviewee-based questionnaire to know people behavior in seeking health information. Results: The majority are using the internet as a source of health information (71.3%, n=321) followed by friends who are health workers (31.3%, n=140). Internet search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) being the most commonly used to gain health information through Internet (68.2%, n=307) followed by Social media (9.8%, n=44). Conclusion: This study revealed that internet use for seeking health information is in increasing manner with intemet search engines (Google, Yahoo...etc) being the most used source. We conclude that internet use for seeking health information is still a common behavior in the population.