Online Health Services: Attitudes and Behaviors among Adults in Israel

Objective: Online Health Services (OHS) emerged in the last decade and currently encompass technologies that facilitate patient-practitioner communication in medical fields such as diagnosis, treatment, counseling, and monitoring, including for chronic patients. The current study aims to describe attitudes and behaviors related to OHS and identify variables that explain online technology use. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study among Hebrew-speaking, computer-literate adults, with data collected via online questionnaires. The convenience sample included 700 respondents, of whom 57.4% were female. Respondents’ mean age was 64 years, with most being married (59.3%), secular (75.9%), academically educated at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels (59.1%), and having a chronic illness (65.7%). Results: Despite high OHS use among nearly half the participants, most were undecided whether they preferred in-person or online treatment. Preference for in-person treatment was negatively associated with the perceived efficiency and safety of online treatment, online health literacy, and the extent of OHS use. Key variables explaining OHS use were perceived efficiency and safety of online treatment, online health literacy, preference for in-person treatment, and chronic illness. The explained variation of the OHS consumption model was 40.4%. Conclusion: The variables explaining OHS use are not necessarily linked to classic background variables, e.g. gender, age, and education, but rather to variables related to the use of OHS for therapeutic purposes. OHS are not perceived as substitutes for in-person meetings with healthcare providers but as a supplementary service. Therefore, to enhance OHS use rates, decision-makers should improve online health literacy and design services integrating OHS with in-person treatment.