Health related internet use in 2026: use, predictors of use and experiences
Type of assignment: BSc. thesis
Internal/external: Internal
How many students? 2
Includes data collection? Yes
Type of research: Quantitative or qualitative research
Department: HPT / PCTP
Number of ECTS? 15 ECTS
Research assignment
The internet is an important source for health-related information and online tools for health are increasingly available and adress all phases of the so-called “illness journey”. These phases include:
[1] prevention and healthy life style (eg diet apps, fitbits, activity trackers),
[2] symptom interpretation and help seeking (eg smartwatches to detect cardiac arrhythmias, self-tests, or symptom checkers),
[3] deciding about treatments or care (eg patient decision aids, physician rating sites)
[4] self-management of physical or mental disease (eg tools for symptom monitoring, wearables to monitor disease activity, stress or sleep, mobile apps for mental health or for coping with disease, or online peer support).
Whereas health related internet use may have benefits and improve patient empowerment, it may also have negative consequences such as ‘cyberchondria’, and may even decrease well being in some cases. Negative consequences may occur especially in people who have low digital health literacy skills.
In this assignment students will examine to what extent people currently make use of these tools, which factors influence use (eg age, education level, current health status), and what the perceived benefits and drawbacks are. You can choose to focus on the general population, or focus on one particular target group or health issue (for example women in menopause, students with mental health issues). You could also choose to focus on people’s experiences with and attitudes towards one specific type of health related internet tools, for example self-tests via internet (see RIVM rapport), Fit-bits, or AI for mental health.
You can choose to do quantitative or qualitative research, depending on your preferences, aims and target population.
Who are we looking for?
Students who are:
- interested in the topic of health-related internet and apps-for-health
- motivated to conduct a quantitative or qualitative study and collect their own data
Supervisors
Stans Drossaert (Dr.), Department Health Psychology and Technology, c.h.c.drossaert@utwente.nl
Relevant literature
Calixte, R., Rivera, A., Oridota, O., Beauchamp, W., Camacho-Rivera, M. (2020)
Social and demographic patterns of health-related internet use among adults in the united states: A secondary data analysis of the health information national trends survey
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (18), art. no. 6856, pp. 1-16.
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85091106235&doi=10.3390%2fijerph17186856&partnerID=40&md5=5b430f8e853711eb62cd449f32ff182e
Khazaal, Y., Chatton, A., Rochat, L., Hede, V., Viswasam, K., Penzenstadler, L., Berle, D., Starcevic, V. (2021) Compulsive Health-Related Internet Use and Cyberchondria European Addiction Research, 27 (1), pp. 58-66.
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85096002659&doi=10.1159%2f000510922&partnerID=40&md5=aea3d6822ca0a8b76249e921f6d834ef
van der Vaart R, Drossaert C. Development of the Digital Health Literacy Instrument: Measuring a Broad Spectrum of Health 1.0 and Health 2.0 Skills. J Med Internet Res. 2017 Jan 24;19(1):e27. doi: 10.2196/jmir.6709. PMID: 28119275; PMCID: PMC5358017.