Results of the 10 HON survey on health and medical internet use.

The Internet is increasingly being used as a means to search and communicate health information. As the mission of Health on the Net Foundation (HON) is to guide healthcare consumers and professionals to trustworthy online information, we have been interested in seeing the trend of the attitudes towards Internet use for health purposes since 1996. This article presents the results of the 10th HON survey conducted in July-August 2010 (in English and French). It was hosted on the HON site with links from Facebook and Twitter and from HONcode certified web sites. There were 524 participants coming mainly from France (28%), the UK (18%) and the USA (18%). 65% of participants represented the "general public", while the remaining 35% were professionals. Information quality remains the main barrier users encounter while looking for health information online; at the same time, 79% believe they critically assess online content. Both patients and physicians consider the Internet to be helpful in facilitating their communication during consultations, although professionals are more sceptic than the general public. These results justify the continuing efforts of HON to raise public awareness regarding online health information and the ethical, quality and transparency issues, and to educate and guide users towards trustworthy health information.