Internet Use in Pregnancy Informs Women’s Decision Making: A Web‐Based Survey
Abstract
Abstract: Background: Internet access and usage is almost ubiquitous, providing new opportunities and increasing challenges for health care practitioners and users. With pregnant women reportedly turning to the Internet for information during pregnancy, a better understanding of this behavior is needed. The objective of this study was to ascertain why and how pregnant women use the Internet as a health information source, and the overall effect it had on their decision making. Kuhlthau’s (1993) information‐seeking model was adapted to provide the underpinning theoretical framework for the study. Methods: The design was exploratory and descriptive. Data were collected using a valid and reliable web‐based questionnaire. Over a 12‐week period, 613 women from 24 countries who had confirmed that they had used the Internet for pregnancy‐related information during their pregnancy completed and submitted a questionnaire. Results: Most women (97%) used search engines such as Google © to identify online web pages to access a large variety of pregnancy‐related information and to use the Internet for pregnancy‐related social networking, support, and electronic commerce (i.e., e‐commerce). Almost 94 percent of women used the Internet to supplement information already provided by health professionals and 83 percent used it to influence their pregnancy decision making. Nearly half of the respondents reported dissatisfaction with information given by health professionals (48.6%) and lack of time to ask health professionals questions (46.5%) as key factors influencing them to access the Internet. Statistically, women’s confidence levels significantly increased with respect to making decisions about their pregnancy after Internet usage ( p < 0.05). Conclusions: In this study, the Internet played a significant part in the respondents’ health information seeking and decision making in pregnancy. Health professionals need to be ready to support pregnant women in online data retrieval, interpretation, and application. (BIRTH 37:2 June 2010)
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Internet sources are a major influence on decision making by pregnant women.
“Internet sources are a major influence on decision making by pregnant women who are often dissatisfied by the information that they receive from health professionals, with the latter often being inaccessible to women when they have questions. 103”
From Overweight, obesity and excessive weight gain in pregnancy as risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes: A narrative review (2022) · cites this paper as [103]
Health professionals are often inaccessible to women when they have questions.
“Internet sources are a major influence on decision making by pregnant women who are often dissatisfied by the information that they receive from health professionals, with the latter often being inaccessible to women when they have questions. 103”
From Overweight, obesity and excessive weight gain in pregnancy as risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes: A narrative review (2022) · cites this paper as [103]
Pregnant women are often dissatisfied by the information that they receive from health professionals.
“Internet sources are a major influence on decision making by pregnant women who are often dissatisfied by the information that they receive from health professionals, with the latter often being inaccessible to women when they have questions. 103”
From Overweight, obesity and excessive weight gain in pregnancy as risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes: A narrative review (2022) · cites this paper as [103]
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Langley‐Evans, S. C., Pearce, J., & Ellis, S. (2022) · Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics · doi:10.1111/jhn.12999 · Cited by 288 · see citing works
Hughson, J.-A. P., Daly, J. O., Woodward-Kron, R., Hajek, J., & Story, D. (2018) · JMIR mhealth and uhealth · doi:10.2196/mhealth.9119 · Cited by 170 · see citing works
Reaching Perinatal Women Online: The<i>Healthy You, Healthy Baby</i>Website and App
Hearn, L., Miller, M., & Lester, L. (2014) · Journal of Obesity · doi:10.1155/2014/573928 · Cited by 148 · see citing works
Lee, E. W., Denison, F. C., Hor, K., & Reynolds, R. M. (2016) · BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth · doi:10.1186/s12884-016-0831-1 · Cited by 143 · see citing works
“For example, in a study of 613 women, almost 50 % used the Internet to enhance their involvement in pregnancy-related decisionmaking [31] and 90 % felt that health professionals should actively suggest suitable Internet sites to guide their further reading during pregnancy [31].”
BackgroundSlomian, J., Bruyère, O., Reginster, J. Y., & Emonts, P. (2017) · Midwifery · doi:10.1016/j.midw.2017.03.005 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
Petsolari, M., Ibrahim, S. B., & Slovak, P. (2024) · Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642619 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Spadaro, B., Martin-Key, N. A., Funnell, E., & Bahn, S. (2022) · JMIR mhealth and uhealth · doi:10.2196/30724 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Slomian, J., Emonts, P., Vigneron, L., Acconcia, A., Reginster, J.-Y., Oumourgh, M., & Bruyère, O. (2017) · JMIR Research Protocols · doi:10.2196/resprot.6831 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Technology-Supported Interventions for Pregnant Women: A Systematic Review
Lee, Y., & Cho, S. (2019) · CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing · doi:10.1097/cin.0000000000000535 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Ternström, E., Hildingsson, I., Haines, H., Karlström, A., Sundin, Ö., Ekdahl, J., Segeblad, B., Larsson, B., Rondung, E., & Rubertsson, C. (2017) · Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare · doi:10.1016/j.srhc.2017.06.001 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lagan, B. M., Sinclair, M., & George Kernohan, W.
- Affiliations
- University of Ulster (GB)
- Venue
- Birth
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-05-18
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 106-115
- ISSN
- 0730-7659 (ISSN-L)
- 1523-536X
- OpenAlex
- W2112841227
- Cited by
- 443
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 18 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 39 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 39 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 33 · 2016: 43 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 20 · 2012: 18
- FWCI
- 29.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Birth (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Ulster University
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information Retrieval and Search Behavior
- Keywords
- pregnant women, health information seeking, pregnancy decision-making, online health information, search engines, social networking, e-commerce, patient-provider communication
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Pregnancy, Surveys and Questionnaires, Internet, Pregnant Women, Pregnant People
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
