TY - JOUR KW - Medical records KW - information seeking KW - age KW - Older adults KW - young KW - elderly AU - Isto Huvila AU - Jonas Moll AU - Heidi Enwald AU - Noora Hirvonen AU - Rose-Mharie Åhlfeldt AU - Åsa Cajander AB - Introduction Patient accessible electronic health records can be used to inform and empower patients. However, their use may require complementary information seeking since they can be difficult to interpret. So far, relatively little is known of the information seeking that takes place in connection to health record use, and especially the way it varies in different age groups. A better understanding of patients' preferences of where and how to find explanatory information provides valuable input for the development of health information provision and counselling services. Method. The analysis is based on the results of a national survey of Swedish individuals (N=1,411) who had used a national patient accessible electronic health record system (Journalen). Analysis. The data were analysed in SPSS 24.0 using Kruskal-Wallis tests for detecting group-wise differences and Jonckheere-Terpstra tests for discovering age-related trends in the data. Findings. Older patients were more likely to use a telephone and younger patients to use social contacts to ask for clarification. Generally, older adults born between 1946-1960 appear as passive information seekers. Conclusion. Age groups differ in their preferences on how to seek clarification, which underlines the importance of a better understanding of individual differences in delivering not only technically but also intellectually accessible health information. Calling by telephone could be a habit of present older generations whereas, to a degree, searching information online could be a comparable habit of current younger generations. BT - Information Research LA - eng M1 - 1 N2 - Introduction Patient accessible electronic health records can be used to inform and empower patients. However, their use may require complementary information seeking since they can be difficult to interpret. So far, relatively little is known of the information seeking that takes place in connection to health record use, and especially the way it varies in different age groups. A better understanding of patients' preferences of where and how to find explanatory information provides valuable input for the development of health information provision and counselling services. Method. The analysis is based on the results of a national survey of Swedish individuals (N=1,411) who had used a national patient accessible electronic health record system (Journalen). Analysis. The data were analysed in SPSS 24.0 using Kruskal-Wallis tests for detecting group-wise differences and Jonckheere-Terpstra tests for discovering age-related trends in the data. Findings. Older patients were more likely to use a telephone and younger patients to use social contacts to ask for clarification. Generally, older adults born between 1946-1960 appear as passive information seekers. Conclusion. Age groups differ in their preferences on how to seek clarification, which underlines the importance of a better understanding of individual differences in delivering not only technically but also intellectually accessible health information. Calling by telephone could be a habit of present older generations whereas, to a degree, searching information online could be a comparable habit of current younger generations. PY - 2019 EP - paper isic1834 T2 - Information Research TI - Age-related differences in seeking clarification to understand medical record information UR - http://www.informationr.net/ir/24-1/isic2018/isic1834.html VL - 24 SN - 1368-1613 ER -