Consumer health information seeking in social media: a literature review

The objective of this literature review was to summarise current research regarding how consumers seek health-related information from social media. Primarily, we hope to reveal characteristics of existing studies investigating the health topics that consumers have discussed in social media, ascertaining the roles social media have played in consumers' information-seeking processes and discussing the potential benefits and concerns of accessing consumer health information in social media.

The Web of Science Core Collection database was searched for existing literature on consumer health information seeking in social media. The search returned 214 articles, of which 21 met the eligibility criteria following review of full-text documents.