| This study attempted to investigate factors affecting middle-aged women's health information seeking on the Web, based on a research model drawn from two expectancy-value based theories: theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the uses and gratifications approach. The proposed research model, which developed as a framework to explain middle-aged women's health-related Website use, depicted a series of relationships among variables: Demographic variables → Past experience (PE) → Belief-based measure of attitude (be)/Belief-based measure of control (cp) → Gratifications sought (GS)/Attitude/Perceived behavioral control (PBC) → Behavioral intention (BI). Hypotheses were formulated and tested in order to identify which variables affected middle-aged women's BI to use health-related Websites and how those variables were related each other.; Three hundred fifty-four randomly selected middle-aged women in a mid-sized city in the United States responded to a mailed survey questionnaire. Data were analyzed mainly by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and multiple regressions, especially hierarchical multiple regression and step-wise regression. The results of the study show that a middle-aged woman would more likely to go health-related Websites if she has more positive attitude toward (Attitude), stronger motivations for (GS), and more confidence (PBC) in using health-related Websites. Although the three factors were all significant, PBC was shown to be a relatively weaker predictor than Attitude and GS. The underlying reasons for the relatively weak effect of PBC are more likely due to the relatively high socio-economic characteristics of the study sample. This study also found strong direct effects of be and past experience of using health-related Websites on middle-aged women's BI to use the Web for health purposes.; The results support that the research model is user-specific and context-specific. If the research model and measurements were replicated in more diverse contexts in terms of education, income, ethnic background, etc. the results would vary. Therefore, in order to get generalizable results on factors affecting middle-aged women's health information seeking on the Web, the research should be replicated in different contexts using refined measures. |
