Health Websites and Reliability Components

Abstact. Websites technology make health information searching easier. It shifts the activity from conventional to online. Therefore, a websites crediblity becomes important since there is no guarantee for truthful information which may cause a malpractice. The credibility of seven health websites is assessed by focusing on the visual design and the information content. The data collection is conducted by applying a quasi-experiment which adopted Bipolar Emotional Response Testing (BERT). The result shows that health websites credibility is affected by the accuracy, authority, objective, and currency as information content. It is also influenced by concise, beautiful, elegant, friendly, fresh, futuristic, sharp and valuable visual design. This article to reveals that the website credibility is still contextual and can be applied to other websites.

2012

The Web is an important source for people who are seeking healthcare information. Users, who search for health information online, do so without professional guidance. A major problem faced is the possibility that poor information has detrimental effects on health. In this sense, the main goal of this work is to provide a framework that evaluates health web page designed especially for common users, those that may lack sufficient knowledge to validate health content. In order to achieve this goal, we proposed a new methodology to calculate a Trust rank based on reputation and a set of quality indicators. The proposed methodology has shown effective to evaluate the quality of health information sources.

Frontiers in Health Informatics, 2020

Introduction: The significant usage of health websites and their roles as diagnostic and therapeutic tools have increased the importance of evaluating their credibility. Health websites are evaluated using the criteria introduced in the health guidelines; therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the adequacy of these criteria.Materials and Methods: In this critical review study, the guidelines for "Health Websites Evaluation" and "Website Evaluation in Other Subject Areas" were extracted using sensitive keywords from valid databases, classification, comparison and content analyses were performed using scientific methods designed in this study.Results: The results indicate that in terms of various components of health websites, the evaluation criteria are not adequate. Note that health website evaluation criteria are designed based on the evaluation criteria of other subject areas. Therefore, the criteria share problems similar to those of the guidelines for other ...

2010

With the Internet becoming a growing source of health information, evaluating the quality of the webbased health information is essential. A number of consumer-oriented instruments were designed to assess the quality of health information. However, existent tools are incomprehensive, unvalidated, not easy to use, and difficult to understand. The main objective of this study is to provide a framework for systematically developing validated and usable instruments to evaluate the quality of web-based health information. The framework incorporates item-to-total correlation and factor analysis. Next, weighting scores for the quality criteria are assigned based on the application of the Kano model to classify quality criteria as basic, performance or attractive. The development process ends with testing the instrument in terms of its usability, readability, reliability and validity. Among the implications and contributions of this research is improving the quality of the evaluation instru...

Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2019

Background: As the quality of online health information remains questionable, there is a pressing need to understand how consumers evaluate this information. Past reviews identified content-, source-, and individual-related factors that influence consumer judgment in this area. However, systematic knowledge concerning the evaluation process, that is, why and how these factors influence the evaluation behavior, is lacking. Objective: This review aims (1) to identify criteria (rules that reflect notions of value and worth) that consumers use to evaluate the quality of online health information and the indicators (properties of information objects to which criteria are applied to form judgments) they use to support the evaluation in order to achieve a better understanding of the process of information quality evaluation and (2) to explicate the relationship between indicators and criteria to provide clear guidelines for designers of consumer health information systems. Methods: A systematic literature search was performed in seven digital reference databases including Medicine, Psychology, Communication, and Library and Information Science to identify empirical studies that report how consumers directly and explicitly describe their evaluation of online health information quality. Thirty-seven articles met the inclusion criteria. A qualitative content analysis was performed to identify quality evaluation criteria, indicators, and their relationships. Results: We identified 25 criteria and 165 indicators. The most widely reported criteria used by consumers were trustworthiness, expertise, and objectivity. The indicators were related to source, content, and design. Among them, 114 were positive indicators (entailing positive quality judgments), 35 were negative indicators (entailing negative judgments), and 16 indicators had both positive and negative quality influence, depending on contextual factors (eg, source and individual differences) and criteria applied. The most widely reported indicators were site owners/sponsors; consensus among multiple sources; characteristics of writing and language; advertisements; content authorship; and interface design. Conclusions: Consumer evaluation of online health information is a complex cost-benefit analysis process that involves the use of a wide range of criteria and a much wider range of quality indicators. There are commonalities in the use of criteria across user groups and source types, but the differences are hard to ignore. Evidently, consumers' health information evaluation can be characterized as highly subjective and contextualized, and sometimes, misinformed. These findings invite more research into how different user groups evaluate different types of online sources and a personalized approach to educate users about evaluating online health information quality.

Journal of health psychology, 2003

This study identified the criteria that are valued among Internet users when rating and accessing health information on the World Wide Web. Participants (N = 578) successfully completed a Web-based survey by ranking 12 criteria for evaluating health information. Then, by applying those same evaluation criteria, rated the quality of three preselected health-related websites and indicated their preference for one of the three sites. Six criteria including content, design and aesthetics, currency of information and contact addresses were significant predictors for selecting high-quality health information on the Internet. However, compared to their perceived importance, participants' perceptions about quality health information on the Internet were not consistent when selecting quality websites. This study identified the implications for evaluation criteria among Internet users, health professionals and website developers.

With the Internet becoming a growing source of health information, evaluating the quality of the web-based health information is essential. A number of consumer-oriented instruments were designed to assess the quality of health information. However, existent tools are incomprehensive, unvalidated, not easy to use, and difficult to understand. The main objective of this study is to provide a framework for systematically developing validated and usable instruments to evaluate the quality of web-based health information. The framework incorporates item-to-total correlation and factor analysis. Next, weighting scores for the quality criteria are assigned based on the application of the Kano model to classify quality criteria as basic, performance or attractive. The development process ends with testing the instrument in terms of its usability, readability, reliability and validity. Among the implications and contributions of this research is improving the quality of the evaluation instr...

The use of a methodology for the evaluation, comparison and quality improvement of Health Web Sites is justified by its widespread adoption and visibility to Internet users. Due to the sensitiveness of their content and impact on users, health related sites should be evaluated. This chapter proposes three different dimensions for the development of quality evaluation methodologies of Health Web Sites: contents, services and technical. We consider that these dimensions should be addressed transversally, providing an integrated and better overall evaluation.

Studies in health technology and informatics, 2012

In this paper we present the MIR index, a composite index of Medical Information Reliability. This percentage index is intended as a simple indicator of Information Quality of medical online resources from the perspective of their potential consumers. We exemplify its application in the domain of the Non Conventional and Complementary Medicine (NCM/CAM) for its lack of institutional professional figures; yet the structure of the index makes it suitable also for other healthcare-related domains where guidelines for IQ assurance exist.

Clinical Psychiatry, 2022

We now live in the information age where access to Internet resources is just a few clicks away. The Internet is a technology, which has gained more popularity in many countries across the world and Ghana, is no exception. The Internet as a medium of communication and source of information has enabled students, researchers, business information seekers and information professionals to access information to enhance their work and communicate effectively. Hence, there is the need to determine the dependability of the information gathered from these sources.