Components of Parental Information Seeking Behavior for Children's Health

Promoting community health and improving health status requires training and clarifying health information seeking behavior in the community. In this regard, due to the caring role parents have in the family, they can play an important role by improving their health information acquisition skills. This study aimed to identify the components related to parental health information seeking behavior.

This was a library review study using a hybrid approach. After determining the keywords and searching in internal and external databases, 5574 articles were found. Applying filters and examining the content, the codes were extracted from 22 articles. Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) indices were used to review the articles, and Shannon entropy table, expert opinion, and kappa coefficient were employed to extract the codes.

In this study, 4 main and 12 subcategories were identified. Information needs, sources of information, cognitive factors and barriers to class information acquisition, and health-oriented information as well as child health assessment, conventional and non-conventional sources, social support, communication infrastructure, information validity were among the subcategories.

Facilitating the access to credible health-oriented information has a great impact on promoting health literacy and ultimately improving the level of health of individuals, including parents of children under 5 years old. Therefore, considering physical infrastructure, search skills, and individual and social differences as well as health information literacy training are among the factors affecting health promotion and improving its two-way relationship with health-information seeking behavior.