scholarly journals Empowering Patients and Health Professionals in the Arab World: The King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Arabic Health Encyclopedia on the Web

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 125-130
Author(s):  
M. M. Altuwaijri

SummaryThe purpose of this paper is to describe the needs and the process of establishing an online Arabic health encyclopedia to empower patients and health professionals with trustworthy information.A study was conducted by King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in collaboration with Health on the Net (HON) Foundation to review the quality of Arabic health information on the internet. A review of health portals in other languages was performed. Meetings were conducted to investigate areas of collaboration with different stakeholders including: WHO, HON, the U.S. National Library of Medicine, and the NHS.The results of the assessment of Arabic health sites showed that a very small percentage (almost 4%) meets international standards. The study results call for immediate action to improve the trustworthiness of Arabic health information on the net. This will be achieved by establishing a reliable Arabic health encyclopedia and by encouraging health professionals from all Arab countries to contribute to its creation. It is important for the 300 million Arabic citizens around the world to be able to access valuable health information on the internet.More than 300 million Arab citizens around the world have missed the opportunity to use the internet to provide them with quality health information. Hence, to bridge this gap, a new project was launched to develop an online Arabic health encyclopedia. Moreover, this study proposes an Arabic health information foundation be established to govern and accredit the Arabic health websites, and to work in collaboration with HON, to regulate and promote the quality of health information on the internet in Arab countries.

10.2196/13534 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. e13534
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Ameri ◽  
Kathleen Keeling ◽  
Reza Salehnejad

Background Seeking health information on the internet is very popular despite the debatable ability of lay users to evaluate the quality of health information and uneven quality of information available on the Web. Consulting the internet for health information is pervasive, particularly when other sources are inaccessible because of time, distance, and money constraints or when sensitive or embarrassing questions are to be explored. Question and answer (Q&A) platforms are Web-based services that provide personalized health advice upon the information seekers’ request. However, it is not clear how the quality of health advices is ensured on these platforms. Objective The objective of this study was to identify how platform design impacts the quality of Web-based health advices and equal access to health information on the internet. Methods A total of 900 Q&As were collected from 9 Q&A platforms with different design features. Data on the design features for each platform were generated. Paid physicians evaluated the data to quantify the quality of health advices. Guided by the literature, the design features that affected information quality were identified and recorded for each Q&A platform. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and unbiased regression tree methods were used for the analysis. Results Q&A platform design and health advice quality were related. Expertise of information providers (beta=.48; P=.001), financial incentive (beta=.4; P=.001), external reputation (beta=.28; P=.002), and question quality (beta=.12; P=.001) best predicted health advice quality. Virtual incentive, Web 2.0 mechanisms, and reputation systems were not associated with health advice quality. Conclusions Access to high-quality health advices on the internet is unequal and skewed toward high-income and high-literacy groups. However, there are possibilities to generate high-quality health advices for free.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 41-60
Author(s):  
Khaled Abdullah Ibrahim

Since the emergence of the world in the era of the first industrial revolution, and since the human relations took the nature of dealing between companies of different nationality from the countries of the world, and with the intensity of dealing with various facilities and technologies, and the resulting enormity of the quality and quality of different products, and with the intensification of competition between companies and countries, And the growing desire to dominate the local and global markets, which increased its motto, the world witnessed the economic crises and the repercussions of some advanced industrial countries, and the emergence of new centers of gravity of the industrial technology countries were Japan, Korea and Southeast Asian countries and other countries that have added an element For innovation in industrial technology to the global competition circuit. Hence, the factors and conditions of quality were reviewed and accelerated in accordance with the tastes of customers and the economic price, which imposed its importance based on many data. And the emergence of the comprehensive quality control system or the so-called international standards ISO 9000, all aimed at the liberalization of trade and the development of specific standards for trade, service and commodity. Taking into consideration all of the above, as well as the growing interest in industry in developing countries, including the Arab countries, and their attempts to innovate in industrial catching up, the international standards have become very important in all developing countries. Therefore, quality management in educational institutions has been addressed in some of its systems in order to shed light on this issue and to link it with the role of senior management. The concept of TQM has become an effective administrative approach adopted by most organizations. Since TQM in its essence and philosophy, Of its main and important tools and because it is the cornerstone in the management of the quality of the educational service, in which the service was received and developed following scientific methods based on the objective basis for both continuous improvement and quality management service.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Ameri ◽  
Kathleen Keeling ◽  
Reza Salehnejad

BACKGROUND Seeking health information on the internet is very popular despite the debatable ability of lay users to evaluate the quality of health information and uneven quality of information available on the Web. Consulting the internet for health information is pervasive, particularly when other sources are inaccessible because of time, distance, and money constraints or when sensitive or embarrassing questions are to be explored. Question and answer (Q&amp;A) platforms are Web-based services that provide personalized health advice upon the information seekers’ request. However, it is not clear how the quality of health advices is ensured on these platforms. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to identify how platform design impacts the quality of Web-based health advices and equal access to health information on the internet. METHODS A total of 900 Q&amp;As were collected from 9 Q&amp;A platforms with different design features. Data on the design features for each platform were generated. Paid physicians evaluated the data to quantify the quality of health advices. Guided by the literature, the design features that affected information quality were identified and recorded for each Q&amp;A platform. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and unbiased regression tree methods were used for the analysis. RESULTS Q&amp;A platform design and health advice quality were related. Expertise of information providers (beta=.48; <italic>P</italic>=.001), financial incentive (beta=.4; <italic>P</italic>=.001), external reputation (beta=.28; <italic>P</italic>=.002), and question quality (beta=.12; <italic>P</italic>=.001) best predicted health advice quality. Virtual incentive, Web 2.0 mechanisms, and reputation systems were not associated with health advice quality. CONCLUSIONS Access to high-quality health advices on the internet is unequal and skewed toward high-income and high-literacy groups. However, there are possibilities to generate high-quality health advices for free.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Rubinelli

Abstract The paternalistic approach to health professional-patient communication is often no longer successful. The main reasons for this include the fact that trust in medicine and health professionals is no longer taken for granted. In many domains, the concepts of 'expert' and 'science' are in shadow. Moreover, patients can access all sorts of health information, including information that is or seems inconsistent with the advice given by their health professionals. This talk aims to illustrate some basic approaches to communication that can enhance health professional-patient interaction. First, health professionals should consider their communication with patients as a form of persuasion. Persuasion, that does not equal manipulation, is a way to communicate that takes into consideration the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of interlocutors. By adopting a person-centered style, health professionals should present their advice by contextualizing it into the emotional and cognitive setting of the patients. Second, communication should consider the lived experience of patients, that is the impact that a health condition or a preventive behavior has on their quality of life and their experience of pleasure. Indeed, managing health conditions is not just applying health advice: it often demands a change in lifestyles that can negatively impact how patients live their lives. Third, health professionals should develop clear strategies to engage with information that patients find from other sources. Health professionals must ask patients if they disagree with them, and to clarify any eventual difference of opinion. The information age has positively favored a democratization of health information. Yet, it imposes that health systems care for their communication. This talk concludes by presenting main evidence from on how to reinforce hospitals, public health institutions, and health services in communication so that patients want to listen.


2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raniah Samir Adham ◽  
Karsten Oster Lundqvist

Abstract Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the Arab World are still in their infancy. Many Arab countries are now starting to launch their MOOC platforms; however, there are only a few who have actually implemented such systems. This paper will explore online learning, in particular the rise of MOOCs around the world and their impact on the Arab World. The purpose of this paper is to give a true picture of the development of the first MOOC platforms in the Arab World. It will analyse in detail the concept, definitions, background, and types of MOOCs (xMOOCs and cMOOCs), as well as the main MOOCs platform in the Western and Arab worlds, and a timeline of the development of MOOCs. It will then observe the status of MOOCs in the developed world, opportunities in the Middle East, and the influence of Western MOOCs on the Arab world, from many perspectives, e.g. educational, religious, cultural and social.


2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentin Nădăşan

AbstractThe Internet has become one of the main means of communication used by people who search for health-related information. The quality of online health-related information affects the users’ knowledge, their attitude, and their risk or health behaviour in complex ways and influences a substantial number of users in their decisions regarding diagnostic and treatment procedures.The aim of this review is to explore the benefits and risks associated with using the Internet as a source of health-related information; the relationship between the quality of the health-related information available on the Internet and the potential risks; the multiple conceptual components of the quality of health-related information; the evaluation criteria for quality health-related information; and the main approaches and initiatives that have been implemented worldwide to help improve users’ access to high-quality health-related information.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavla Vítová ◽  
Jaromír Harmáček

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) identified in 2002 three fundamental areas of human development in which the Arab world lags behind the rest of the world. One of those specified areas was the lack of freedom and democracy. To investigate the presence of the democratic deficit, the study introduces a composite democracy index that measures and compares countries’ performances in the democratic domains. This paper aims to define and describe the democratic deficit in the context of the Islamic world, verify its existence in the Arab world, and determine its possible presence in other Muslim countries in various world regions. The study results showed that although the deficit was formulated almost twenty years ago, it is still relevant. It has been observed that Muslim countries performed, on average, worse on the index score than non-Muslim countries, which means that the Islamic countries face the democratic deficit. Moreover, the results showed that the performance of the Arab world in the democratic index is even worse than that of the other Muslim countries. The analysis additionally confirmed that the economic factor is important in verification of the deficit and its depth. On the level of individual countries, poor Muslim states often achieved the worst results, usually from the group of the least developed countries, such as Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, or Eritrea.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teaghan Pryor ◽  
Kristin Reynolds ◽  
Paige Kirby ◽  
Matthew Bernstein

BACKGROUND The Internet can increase the accessibility of mental health information and improve the mental health literacy of older adults. The quality of mental health information on the Internet can be inaccurate or biased, leading to misinformation OBJECTIVE This study’s objectives were to evaluate the quality, usability, and readability of websites providing information concerning depression in later life. METHODS Websites were identified through a Google search, and evaluated by assessing quality (DISCERN), usability (Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool; PEMAT) and readability (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook; SMOG). RESULTS The overall quality of late-life depression websites (N = 19) was moderate, usability was low, and readability was poor. No significant relationship was found between quality and readability of websites. CONCLUSIONS Websites can be improved by enhancing information quality, usability, and readability related to late-life depression. The use of high-quality websites may improve mental health literacy and shared treatment decision-making for older adults.


Author(s):  
Kleopatra Alamantariotou

Recent statistics show that the World Wide Web has now grown to over 100 million sites: a phenomenal expansion in only 15 years (Mulligan 2007). It has been estimated that there are 100,000 sites offering health related information (Wilson 2002). As the amount of health information increases, the public find it increasingly difficult to decide what to accept and what to reject (Burgess 2007). Searching for information on the internet is both deceptively easy and the same time frustratingly difficult (Kiley 2002). The challenge for consumers is to find high quality, relevant information as quickly as possible. There has been ongoing debate about the quality of information aimed at patients and the general public and opinions differ on how it can be improved (Stepperd 1999). The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of the different perspectives on information quality and to review the main criteria for assessing the quality of health information on the internet. Pointers are provided to enable both clinicians and patients find high quality information sources. An understanding of these issues should help health professionals and patients to make effective use of the internet.


Author(s):  
Bill Ag. Drougas

Internet today is one of the most useful tools for information, education and business or entertainment. It is one of the modern technology tools giving us many applications world wide in various fields. One of the most important applications of the Internet is the e-commerce for quality health and medical products. There are an enormous number of Web sites offering health products with the method of E-commerce but still there are many problems with the quality of these products. To the other side many individuals are not able to choice and to know about the quality of these health products that offered today on line with the Internet companies. There are many serious proposals today in to the direction of the quality of the products in health. In this paper summarized many informations about the on line commerce for health products, some of the most popular products and the methodology to train individuals in to the direction to buy and choose quality products. In this paper also presented and analyzed the characteristics and criteria of one serious Internet health company and its Web site. Also how the different scientific organizations can help people and the electronic health commerce to be more effective in to various fields in the division of the popular health. This will be more effective after training and giving criteria and or educating Internet users for a serious choice in to their on line commerce with the E-Health Commerce Web Organizations.


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