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Trust between patients and health websites: a review of the literature and derived outcomes from empirical studies

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Abstract

With the exploding growth of the web, health websites have become a dominant force in the realm of health care. Technically savvy patients have been using the web not only to self inform but to self diagnose. In this paper we examine the trust relationship between humans and health websites by outlining the existing literature on trust in health websites. A total of 49 papers were examined using a meta-analytical framework. Using this framework, each paper was coded for the antecedents and facets that comprise user trust in health websites. Our findings show that there is little consensus regarding the defining characteristics of the construct of trust in health websites. Further research in this field should focus on collaboratively defining trust and what factors affect trust in health web sites.

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Acknowledgements

This publication was supported by grant 1UL1RR025011 from the Clinical & Translational Science Award (CTSA) program of the National Center for Research Resources National Institutes of Health. The University of Wisconsin-Madison Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) provided support on this project http://cqpi.engr.wisc.edu. We would also like to thank Calvin Or who helped in the initial review of this work.

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  1. Computer Science Department, Virginia Tech, 2202 Kraft Drive, Blacksburg, VA, 24060, USA

    Laurian C. Vega & Tom DeHart

  2. 3222 Mechanical Engineering Building University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Enid Montague

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  1. Laurian C. Vega
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Correspondence to Enid Montague.

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Vega, L.C., DeHart, T. & Montague, E. Trust between patients and health websites: a review of the literature and derived outcomes from empirical studies. Health Technol. 1, 71–80 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12553-011-0010-3

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