Wikipedia as an Online Health Information Source: Consumers’ Satisfaction with Information Quality

Abstract

For consumers making health decisions, Wikipedia is a popular source for health information. This study investigated major factors influencing consumer satisfaction with Wikipedia medical/health articles. Using a crowdsourcing method, data were collected from 322 adults who read/edit English Wikipedia medical/health articles and reside in the US. The results showed that the presentation of information was the most influential factor. Trustworthiness was the second most important factor for consumer satisfaction with the quality of information, followed by reliability, and topic coverage. Study participants did not consider other factors such as accuracy and currency to be crucial factors. Moderating effects of the control variables such as editing experience with Wikipedia articles, gender, and age were also examined to enhance the internal validity of the study. Implications for the Wikipedia editor community and researchers, and directions of future research are presented.

Keywords

• wikipedia
• consumer health
• information quality
• consumer satisfaction
• health information