Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior Regarding Online Health Information — An Exploratory Factor Analysis Approach

The rapid advancements in the field of healthcare has marked the beginning of a new era. In the world of hand held gadgets information is in the hands of the consumers. The healthcare consumers are more health conscious and possess more self-efficacy than ever before. They want to be well versed with their healthcare condition and the treatment being offered. Since there is high demand of online health information, a lot of such information is published on the internet. For the purpose of our study any information related to health which is being published online is called ‘Online Health Information’. Online health information is majorly categorized as preventive and curative. Millions of online users are consuming, discussing and reproducing this information every day. In the light of the current scenario, it is necessary to examine consumer behavior towards online health information. In this paper the authors study factors that influence consumer behavior regarding online health information. For the purpose of this study, exploratory factor analysis has been used. Several research papers were studied and a number of items pertaining to healthcare and online users were identified. A primary research survey was then conducted with a sample size of 132 respondents to identify the influence of these items on consumers through exploratory factor analysis. A The Data was collected with the help of web surveys conducted across Delhi/NCR