Information Attribute Motivators of Personal Health Information Management Activities

Understanding the motivating factors for personal health information management (PHIM) activities can inform the design of interventions to help people engage in healthful PHIM activities. This paper examines the attributes of health information that can motivate people’s PHIM activities. We explored this topic through a qualitative study using semi-structured one-on-one interviews with 47 American and Chinese patients living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. We found 10 information attribute motivators, including the availability, abundance, credibility, accuracy, consistency, timeliness, usefulness, process level, and presentation style of, as well as the emotions elicited by, health information objects. Those motivators tell rich and complex stories of how health information is appreciated and handled on a daily basis by patients living with different health conditions or from different social contexts. Many of the motivators have not been examined in detail in the literature, pointing to the importance and necessity of involving them when designing interventions to improve health care outcomes through motivating PHIM activities.