Purpose

With the growing interest in behavioral health and medical decision-making, this systematic integrative review aims to understand research on cognitive biases in the context of consumer health information seeking and where future research opportunities may reside.

Design/methodology/approach

Following a systematic review protocol, 40 empirical research articles, out of 1,127 journal research papers from 12 academic databases, from 1995 to 2019, are included for review.

Findings

The study of cognitive biases in consumer health information seeking is a nascent and fast-growing phenomenon, with variety in publication venues and research methods. Among the 16 biases investigated, optimistic bias and confirmation bias have attracted most attention (46.9%). Researchers are most interested in specific disease/illness (35%) and the health factors of consumer products (17.5%). For theoretical presence, about one-third of the reviewed articles have cited behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman, although most of the references are the early works of Kahneman.

Research limitations/implications

As an emerging research area, there exists plenty of cognitive biases to be investigated in the context of health information seeking. In the meantime, the adoption of more recent theoretical insights such as nudge for debiasing may enrich this research area. Health communication scientists may find incorporating the behavioral decision research framework enriches the disciplinary inquiry of health information seeking, while information scientists could use it to commence the cognitive turn of information science evolution.

Originality/value

Through evidence-based understanding, this review shows the potential research directions that health communication scientists and information scientists could contribute to optimize health decisions through the adoption of behavioral decision research framework.

中文翻译：

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消费者健康信息搜索中认知偏见的系统综合审查：行为信息研究的新兴观点

目的

随着人们对行为健康和医疗决策的兴趣日益浓厚，这项系统的综合综述旨在了解在消费者健康信息搜索以及未来研究机会可能存在的地方对认知偏见的研究。

设计/方法/方法

根据系统的审查协议，从1995年到2019年，来自12个学术数据库的1,127篇期刊研究论文中有40篇实证研究文章被收录。

发现

对消费者健康信息搜索中的认知偏见的研究是一个新兴且快速发展的现象，其出版场所和研究方法多种多样。在所调查的16个偏见中，乐观偏见和确认偏见引起了最多的关注（46.9％）。研究人员对特定疾病/疾病（35％）和消费品的健康因素（17.5％）最为感兴趣。从理论上讲，约有三分之一的评论文章引用了行为经济学家丹尼尔·卡尼曼（Daniel Kahneman），尽管大部分参考文献都是卡尼曼的早期著作。

研究局限/意义

作为一个新兴的研究领域，在寻求健康信息的过程中存在着许多认知偏见。同时，采用更近的理论见解（例如微调去偏）可能会充实该研究领域。健康传播科学家可能会发现，将行为决策研究框架纳入其中可以丰富对健康信息搜索的学科查询，而信息科学家则可以使用它来启动信息科学进化的认知转向。

创意/价值

通过基于证据的理解，本次审查显示了健康传播科学家和信息科学家可以通过采用行为决策研究框架来优化健康决策的潜在研究方向。