Online Health-information Seeking Behavior among Pregnant Women in Prenatal Clinics at King Saud Medical City, Riyadh

The Internet is becoming indispensable in daily life for many people, and it has changed the way people search for informational, entertainment and communication needs. The use of the Internet to acquire health information is increasingly common.
A modified questionnaire drawn from a previous study was used as this study’s instrument. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study, and the survey was completed by pregnant women in the waiting area of the Prenatal Clinics at King Saud Medical City of 210 questionnaires distributed, 190 were returned and 150 were valid, giving a response rate of 71.4%.
The study found that more than half of the respondents were using Google and other research tools to find pregnancy-related health information. They visited women’s forums to obtain information about pregnancy, commercial pages for maternity and childhood health information, and sometimes used YouTube, Face book, and Twitter to find educational health content. The most researched topics on the Internet are fetal development, stages of pregnancy and changes during pregnancy.