ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Humanities and Social Sciences
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1628421
Horse Owners Seeking Online Health Information: A Mixed-Methods Study
Provisionally accepted- 1Institute for Medical Informatics and Biometry, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, School of Medicine, Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany
- 2Computer Science, Department of Cooperative Studies, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Berlin, Germany
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Many people seek health-related information online, not only for themselves but also on behalf of others who cannot articulate their symptoms. This proxy information-seeking behavior is particularly relevant for animal owners, who must interpret their animals' symptoms without direct verbal feedback. While online health information-seeking in the context of one’s own health is well-studied, the specific challenges of searching by proxy, especially for animal health information, remain largely unexplored. Objective: This study aimed to determine the specific information needs and search behavior of animal owners. As a case study, horse owners were selected, representing a group regularly searching the web for health-related advice concerning their animals. Methods: A mixed-methods approach was used with 17 horse owners in Germany. Participants first described a recent search for equine health information. They were then shown a video of a horse experiencing an asthma attack and asked to conduct a search on how to proceed with the horse’s condition. Afterwards, they were questioned about their respective search behavior. Results: The participants’ main initial questions revolved around the cause of the horse’s condition, its urgency of veterinary treatment and the cost of treatment. All participants chose the Google search engine as the starting point for their search and formulated an average of 3.71 (SD: 2.02) queries. Each of these queries contained an average of 3.81 words (SD: 1.57). Most searches (52%) were evidence-directed with 29% using multiple descriptors of the horse’s situation. An average of 0.97 results (SD: 1.38) were clicked per query, with titles containing all search terms in 13% of cases. Participants reported experiencing several barriers to their search, including difficulties in formulating precise queries and the need for additional guidance during the search process. Conclusions: The findings highlight the need for improved online information systems, offering better guidance, context-aware search support, and trustworthy sources. The insights could inform veterinarians on how to better address their clients' communication and information needs, provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to conduct online research and therefore build a better animal health partnership with them.
Keywords: animal health information seeking, horse health information seeking, Online health information seeking, proxy seeking, human computer interaction, animal owners
Received: 14 May 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Haase, Winter, Grummt, Sedlmayr and Sedlmayr. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Laura Haase, Institute for Medical Informatics and Biometry, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, School of Medicine, Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.