Place of Internet in Health information seeking behavior: Case of young Internet users in Shiraz

Background and Aim: Nowadays, Internet is known as an attractive source of health information to manage individual's health.  Given the importance of it, this study examined the role of Internet in health information seeking behavior among young people in Shiraz.      Method: This research was a survey which target population were youth Internet users in the city of Shiraz.  A sample of 400 were randomly selected using, multi-stage cluster sampling. Data were collected by a questionnaire.      Results: Most of respondents used the Internet to search health information. Young women were more likely to seek online health information than young men. As well as level of education, the experience and self-efficacy to search the Internet, showed a significant correlation with searching OHI, too. The main goal of respondents to search OHI was to understand their health condition or disease, better understanding of health information provided by physicians and self-medication. The results also showed that respondents have positive attitude towards health information retrieved via the Internet.      Conclusion: There is a high demand of OHI among young people to manage personal health. Undoubtedly, foresight and planning to improve the quality of OHI, efforts to create a reliable health information database and public education to care about assessing the quality of OHI can herald the development of individual health and consequently the health of our community.