An increasing proportion of people in the United Kingdom are living longer with long-term conditions. The National Health Service is facing the challenge of increased pressure on its service provision. A number of key health policy initiatives encourage individuals to make informed choices and purport to give them rights and control over their own health and healthcare. Within this context, people are actively encouraged to self-care, manage diseases, and make decisions and choices about healthcare in an informed way. To facilitate this, it is important to gain an understanding of the health information seeking behaviours of older people. Health information is available from various sources but little is known about the health information seeking behaviours of older people and what affects this. By exploring this, it helps to reveal how health information is sought regarding on-going health conditions and provides greater depth in understanding the health information seeking process. The study explores older people's experiences and views on their health information seeking behaviours and endeavours to gain a better understanding of these experiences and views. The study draws on constructivist grounded theory with two phases to data collection: Nine participants completed un-structured diaries over two months with follow up semi-structured interviews, a further twenty participants participated in semi-structured interviews. Major categories were inductively drawn from participant's responses. Strategies of health information seeking behaviours are not necessarily fixed, but subject to change over time. The analysis suggested three main categories that explained the health information seeking behaviours of older people. Three interrelated conceptual categories were identified: (1) Regulating self (2) Self managing and (3) Self-mobilisation. These categories formed the basis of the emergent substantive theory called 'navigating later life'. There were different patterns of behaviours between participants which captured variations in information seeking; these informed the development of a typology of health information seekers. Ageing in the 21st century is a complex process; with older people inhabiting a world of more choice, multiple sources of knowledge, changed healthcare roles and increased self-care undertaken within the home. The study provides important insights for healthcare professionals and raises implications for strategies aimed at improving older people's access to appropriate health information. The navigation model provides a potentially valuable tool for policy makers when considering the support older people require to self-care.

In this study health information seeking behaviour among young adults is investigated and attitudes toward available health information examined. Further, the electronic health record(EHR), ‘Journalen’, is investigated among young adults that use the health services in Sweden. The aim of this study is to gain insight in young adults’ health information seeking behaviour on the Internet.   A survey of health information seeking behaviour among young adults, 18-29 years old, reports that as well as searching for information for their own use, searching for information to help family and friends is also their practice. 95.4% say that they search for health information on the Web.   Overall, the top five categories of information searched are Personal Health, Symptoms, Healthy Diet, Mental Health and Treatment. For the Top five Information searches for themselves(’Self’), Mental Health is displaced by Disease Prevention. Health information categories sought the least by the young adults are information about Illegal Drugs, Allied Health, Alternative medicine and Support Groups. Respondents mostly report a high regard for the information they retrieve in their searches.   The majority rate the quality of health information as ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’. Broadly speaking the young adults trust the health information found online but say that the quality of health information varies from source to source. 1177.se is often referred to as a trustworthy source among the respondents and according to them good quality information can be found there. The respondents use of support groups for themselves is reported, as well an altruistic motivation to support others. While the motivation for many searches is to avoid attending a health professional, approximately one-third report searching after their visit.   This study demonstrates that young adults are active consumers of health information on the Internet and their attitudes toward the available health information are generally positive. Of the respondents who are Swedish residents, 42% are unaware of the availability of their electronic health record in Sweden, Journalen, and of those 56.7% who know of it, 18% have never accessed their EHRs.  More research is needed to investigate the reason for the relatively low numbers of the young adults’ awareness and use of the Journelen. The aim of the study is discussed in the Introduction chapter and research questions identified. The research design is described in the methodology chapter and how data is collected through a survey. Results are presented in Tables and Figures and further analysed in the Analysis chapter in context of earlier research. Finally, the researcher concludes on the study and what could be learned from the findings.

Trust for health care professionals (interpersonal trust) and the health care system (institutional trust) is imperative for the performance of health care systems. However, at the same time, contemporary societies today are characterised by decreasing levels of trust and citizens today are increasingly inclined to seek health information from sources beyond health care professionals. Sociologists have argued that societal institutions, such as the health care system, are subject to individuals’ increasing mistrust, which has created a “critical distance” between lay citizens and modern medicine. In this critical distance, the health care system and its representatives are continually questioned why citizens’ trust for the medical institution can not be taken for granted. Because individuals living in the modern society are more inclined to take control over their health by engaging in health information seeking behaviour, the present study aims to examine whether there exists an association between interpersonal and institutional trust and differences in health information seeking behaviour. This study focuses on the Swedish context, where decreasing levels of trust for societal institutions - including the health care system, have been reported. Multivariate logistic regression analysis using data from European Social Survey (2004) was utilised to answer the research questions “Is the degree of trust for the health care system in Sweden associated with individuals' health information seeking behaviours?” and “Is the degree of trust for health care professionals in Sweden associated with individuals' health information seeking behaviours?”. The majority of the results from this study were not statistically significant, why the null hypothesis can not be ruled out. More recently collected data and more representative operationalisations of variables might generate more valid results. The study topic provides a potentially fruitful and valuable route for future scientific research, why it is considered important to further investigate whether mistrust for the healthcare system and its experts motivates individuals to consult alternative sources rather than health care professionals when seeking health information.

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