The exponential growth in health-care consumerism and limitless consumer access to health information have propelled a surge in scholarship on eHealth [1]. In the last few years, the Internet has become central to the process of health-based consumer decision-making, resulting in a tremendous growth in expert debates about the Internet's impact on the health-care consumer [2]. Although the extant health literature supports the existence of systematic motivational differences in health orientations, consumer use of the Internet has not yet been interrogated in the context of health motivation [3,4,5]. This article examines the idea that the motivational differences in health orientation drive consumer search for health information on the Internet [6,7]. Based on a functional approach to Internet use, the article argues that the health-oriented consumer is more likely to seek out a variety of health-based information on the Internet than people who are not health-oriented [8,9].

The functional approach to media use posits that people use a given medium for many different reasons [10]. The function served by a particular medium emerges from the communicative needs of the audience [11]. Communication behavior, in the functional realm, is goal-directed, and individuals select and use communication channels to satisfy felt needs [12]. This article examines consumer behavior in the following information functions of the Internet: (a) gathering medical news, (b) looking for information about medical services, (c) searching for information about drugs and medications, (d) gathering disease-specific information, (e) searching for information about healthy lifestyle, and (f) looking for discussion groups. It uses the HealthStyles data to examine the differences in demographic, attitudinal, and cognitive variables between individuals on the basis of the different Internet sources of health information that they consider to be most credible.

Correlation analysis demonstrated that the independent variables were positively correlated with one another at the p<.001 level (see Table 4).To analyze the relationship between Internet functions and health-oriented variables, independent sample t-tests were conducted. Given that four t-tests (attitudes, information orientation, beliefs, and activities) were conducted for each information function on the Internet, Bonferroni correction was used to adjust the alpha level by the number of tests. The adjusted alpha for each of the hypotheses was .05/4 = .0125.

The results provided support for the functional approach to Internet consumption in the health context. Motivation emerged as a critical factor in driving consumption of media types. Demonstrating a match between motivation and content choice, health-orientation was positively correlated with information seeking on the Internet. The results suggest that the underlying motivation in a specific issue is likely to draw the consumer to use media (such as the Internet) to gather information about the specific issue. This match between content-based motivation and Internet content use is likely to be strong because of the user-driven nature of the Internet.

Consumers who sought out medical news on the Internet were more health conscious and health-information oriented, held stronger health beliefs, and were more likely to engage in healthy activities. In the domain of Internet use for gathering information about medical services, the only realm where systematic differences were observed between searchers and non-searchers was health-information orientation. Once again, this result makes sense in the context of the functional approach to the Internet. Searching the Internet for medical services information is a reflection of health-information orientation. Given the finding that the health-information-oriented consumer uses the Internet for procuring information about medical services, service providers should use the medium to reach out to health-oriented individuals.

Consumers who seek out information about drugs and medications on the Internet are also more health-information oriented. They hold stronger health beliefs and are more likely to engage in healthy activities. Pharmaceutical companies and providers of treatment options could effectively harness the ability of the Internet to reach the health-active group. The message, however, must be cogently constructed, and strong arguments must be provided because searchers are actively engaged in their health decisions. It is also important to present complete health information given the active orientation of the group. The search for disease-specific information was positively correlated with health orientation. Also, the search for information about a health lifestyle was positively associated with health consciousness, health-information orientation, health beliefs, and healthy activities. Developers of new health solutions should target this health-active group given its strong involvement with health information. Finally, individuals who sought out discussion groups on the Internet were more health-information oriented, although no other differences were observed.

The t-tests, and subsequently the regression analysis, pointed out that the strongest effect across the different Internet health-information functions is in health-information orientation. This is perhaps a result of the fact that health-information orientation is most closely aligned with specific health-information-seeking functions on the Internet. The negative relationship of health consciousness to the Internet information-seeking functions is attributable to the multicollinearity. This is proven by the results of the independent t-tests that demonstrated either no relationship or positive relationship between health-conscious attitude and Internet information-seeking function.

One of the limitations of the study was its use of self-reported measures. Self-reported indicators of health consciousness, health beliefs, health-information orientation, and healthy activities raise questions about validity. The "topics of health information" variable was treated as a dichotomous variable measured in a Yes/No format; therefore, it did not provide information about the degree of consumer use of the different health topics. The items "eating right, exercising, and taking preventive measures" and "eating lots of fruits, vegetables, and grains" were triple-barreled. The mailback panel used in the study suffers from problems of attrition and panel bias. Also, the effect sizes were typically small. Finally, the use of an American sample that is predominantly white limits the generalizability of the study results. Future research needs to extrapolate the research findings to other cultural domains.