UTILIZATION OF A PEDIATRIC LINK COLLECTION BY HEALTH-PROFESSIONALS AND LAYPERSONS

The Internet is an evolving resource for health-care information. Howe ver little information exists on providers' and other web patrons' usa ge of the 'medical' Internet. This study aims to characterize the user s of a large paediatric link collection, describe their objectives and track their use of the information provided by the site. We utilized a paediatric link collection called the Pediatric Points of Interest ( POI) and a combination of a questionnaire, unique user identifier and link-tracking system to collect data about POI patrons' demographics a nd Internet resource utilization. During a live week period, 5216 indi viduals visited the POI and requested 36187 links. The majority of use rs had less than one year of Internet experience and were first-time v isitors to the POI. More than 83 % of users were from North America. M edical professionals were more likely to return to the POI during the study period and reported visiting the POI mainly for 'medical educati on', 'research', 'resource identification', and 'disease specific info rmation'; they proceeded primarily to the resource categories 'Medical Institutions and Agencies' (32%) and 'Professional Education and Reso urces' (28%). Laypersons expressed the greatest interest in 'disease s pecific information' and 'patient education' and most frequently visit ed the category. 'Patient Education' (42 %). On average, users were ab le to identify resources related to their stated goals within one leve l of searching. Health care providers and other web patrons are active ly utilizing Internet sites to seek medical information and are able t o identify resources with a minimum of searching.