Evaluating the Acceptance and Usability of an Independent, Noncommercial Search Engine for Medical Information: Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Study and User Behavior Tracking Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The internet is a key source of health information, but the quality of content from popular search engines varies, posing challenges for users-especially those with low health or digital health literacy. To address this, the "tala-med" search engine was developed in 2020 to provide access to high-quality, evidence-based content. It prioritizes German health websites based on trustworthiness, recency, user-friendliness, and comprehensibility, offering category-based filters while ensuring privacy by avoiding data collection and advertisements.

Objective

This study aims to evaluate the acceptance and usability of this independent, noncommercial search engine from the users' perspectives and their actual use of the search engine.

Methods

For the questionnaire

SUBMITTER: Specht L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11803324 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature