scholarly journals Evaluating the Quality of Health Information in a Changing Digital Ecosystem (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alla Keselman ◽  
Catherine Arnott Smith ◽  
Anita C Murcko ◽  
David R Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Dietary Supplements ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Digital Ecosystem ◽  
Google Search

BACKGROUND Critical evaluation of online health information has always been central to consumer health informatics. However, with the emergence of new Web media platforms and the ubiquity of social media, the issue has taken on a new dimension and urgency. At the same time, many established existing information quality evaluation guidelines address information characteristics other than the content (eg, authority and currency), target information creators rather than users as their main audience, or do not address information presented via novel Web technologies. OBJECTIVE The aim of this formative study was to (1) develop a methodological approach for analyzing health-related Web pages and (2) apply it to a set of relevant Web pages. METHODS This qualitative study analyzed 25 type 2 diabetes pages, which were derived from the results of a Google search with the keywords “diabetes,” “reversal,” and “natural.” The coding scheme, developed via a combination of theory- and data-driven approaches, includes 5 categories from existing guidelines (resource type, information authority, validity of background information sources, objectivity, and currency) and 7 novel categories (treatment or reversal method, promises and certainty, criticisms of establishment, emotional appeal, vocabulary, rhetoric and presentation, and use of science in argumentation). The coding involves both categorical judgment and in-depth narrative characterization. On establishing satisfactory level of agreement on the narrative coding, the team coded the complete dataset of 25 pages. RESULTS The results set included “traditional” static pages, videos, and digitized versions of printed newspapers or magazine articles. Treatments proposed by the pages included a mixture of conventional evidence-based treatments (eg, healthy balanced diet exercise) and unconventional treatments (eg, dietary supplements, optimizing gut flora). Most pages either promised or strongly implied high likelihood of complete recovery. Pages varied greatly with respect to the authors’ stated background and credentials as well as the information sources they referenced or mentioned. The majority included criticisms of the traditional health care establishment. Many sold commercial products ranging from dietary supplements to books. The pages frequently used colloquial language. A significant number included emotional personal anecdotes, made positive mentions of the word cure, and included references to nature as a positive healing force. Most pages presented some biological explanations of their proposed treatments. Some of the explanations involved the level of complexity well beyond the level of an educated layperson. CONCLUSIONS Both traditional and data-driven categories of codes used in this work yielded insights about the resources and highlighted challenges faced by their users. This exploratory study underscores the challenges of consumer health information seeking and the importance of developing support tools that would help users seek, evaluate, and analyze information in the changing digital ecosystem.

Health Literacy and Medication Literacy in Saudi Arabia: Current Status

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Rasha A. Almubark ◽  
Mada Basyouni ◽  
Ashjan Alghanem ◽  
Amani S. Alqahtani ◽  
Nasser F. BinDhim
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Disease ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Nationwide Survey ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Low Health Literacy

Background: Low health literacy and medication literacy can be associated with adverse medication-related events. The objectives of this research were to characterize medication use, describe health information sources, and characterize medication literacy in the KSA population. Methods: A cross-sectional nationwide survey was conducted among Saudi residents aged 18 years or above. Results: A total of 3,557 surveys were available for analysis (men = 1,811 and women = 1,746). Respondents were concentrated in younger categories, and each region was represented by 7% to 8% of respondents by design. Twenty-three percent of respondents (n = 825) reported having at least one chronic disease. A total of 1,882 (53%) of respondents reported ever looking for health information; of those, web pages were the most popular information sources. Among those taking medication for chronic disease, only 61% agreed that they knew how their medication should be monitored, 51% agreed that they knew what to do if they missed a dose, and 50% agreed that they knew their drug's side effects. Conclusion: This study's results suggest that interventions focused on medication literacy and tailored to prevalent chronic disease groups should be explored. Because the most common source of health information is web pages, interventions to improve overall health information literacy, especially pertaining to online medication information, should be studied.

Googling migraine: A study of Google as an information resource of migraine management

Cephalalgia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (14) ◽  
pp. 1633-1644
Author(s):  
Rachid Bojazar ◽  
Thien Phu Do ◽  
Jakob Møller Hansen ◽  
David W Dodick ◽  
Messoud Ashina
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Migraine Treatment ◽  
Search Term ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Search Results ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Google Search

Introduction Health information is one of the most frequently searched topics on the internet. In this observational cross-sectional study, we evaluated the content of the highest indexed Google search results related to migraine management. Methods We identified the five most used search terms related to migraine management via Google Trends in the time period 1 January 2004 to 2 October 2019. We entered each search term into Google’s search engine and retrieved the search results from the first three pages from each search query. We stratified the recommended treatment options and evaluated the websites using the DISCERN tool. Results In total, 73 unique websites recommended a total of 77 different migraine treatment options, consisting of 35 (45%) acute and 42 (55%) preventive treatments. For acute treatments, pharmacological options were more frequently recommended (88% of websites), whereas non-pharmacological options were more frequent among preventive treatments (67%). Evaluation of the consumer health information using the DISCERN tool showed that non-governmental organizations had the highest mean total score with 3.8 (±0.19). Conclusions Googling when looking for migraine treatments reveals a multitude of management proposals of varying quality. Non-governmental organizations provide the overall highest quality of written consumer health information on migraine treatments among search results. We encourage stakeholders to optimize and distribute high-quality and peer-reviewed information on migraine management.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Quality and Readability of Internet Information Sources regarding the Treatment of Swallowing Disorders

2017 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 128-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley P. O'Connell Ferster ◽  
Amanda Hu
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Swallowing Disorders ◽  
Reading Level ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
8Th Grade ◽  
Google Search

The Internet has become a popular resource for patient education. The information it provides, however, is rarely peer-reviewed, and its quality may be a concern. Since the average American reads at an 8th grade level, the American Medical Association and the National Institutes of Health have recommended that health information be written at a 4th to 6th grade level. We performed a study to assess the quality and readability of online information regarding the treatment of swallowing disorders. A Google search for “swallowing treatment” was conducted. We studied the first 50 websites that appeared on the search engines results with the use of the DISCERN quality index tool, the Flesch Ease of Reading Score (FRES), and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) readability test. DISCERN is a validated 16-item questionnaire used to assess the quality of written health information; FRES and FKGL are used to assess readability. We classified the websites as either patient-targeted or professional-targeted sites, as well as either major or minor. The overall DISCERN score was 1.61 ± 0.61 (range: 1 to 5), the overall FRES was 39.1 ± 19.0 (range: 1 to 100), and the overall FKGL was 11.8 ± 3.4 (range: 3 to 12). As would be expected, patient-targeted websites had significantly higher FRES and significantly lower FKGL scores than did the professional-targeted websites (p = 0.01 and p = 0.04, respectively); there was no significant difference between the two in DISCERN scores. The major websites had significantly higher DISCERN scores than did the minor sites (p = 0.002); there were no significant differences in FRES and FKGL scores. We conclude that online information sources regarding the treatment of swallowing disorders were of sub optimal quality in that information was written at a level too difficult for the average American to easily understand. Also, the patient-targeted websites were written at a lower reading level, and the major websites contained a higher quality of information.

Characteristics of Consumer Terminology for Health Information Retrieval

2002 ◽  
Vol 41 (04) ◽  
pp. 289-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Kogan ◽  
N. Ash ◽  
R. A. Greenes ◽  
A. A. Boxwala ◽  
Q. Zeng
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Health Service ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Information Source ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Retrieval Performance ◽  
Major Barrier

Summary Objectives: As millions of consumers perform health information retrieval online, the mismatch between their terminology and the terminologies of the information sources could become a major barrier to successful retrievals. To address this problem, we studied the characteristics of consumer terminology for health information retrieval. Methods: Our study focused on consumer queries that were used on a consumer health service Web site and a consumer health information Web site. We analyzed data from the site-usage logs and conducted interviews with patients. Results: Our findings show that consumers’ information retrieval performance is very poor. There are significant mismatches at all levels (lexical, semantic and mental models) between the consumer terminology and both the information source terminology and standard medical vocabularies. Conclusions: Comprehensive terminology support on all levels is needed for consumer health information retrieval.

Research on consumers' health information consultation patterns

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Dan Wu ◽  
Hao Xu ◽  
Shu Fan
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Information Behavior ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Consumer Health ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Wide Range

PurposeThis paper aims to identify consumers' health information consultation patterns by analyzing information sources to better understand consumers' health information needs and behavior in the context of multisource health information.Design/methodology/approachHaodaifu Online, an online health consultation (OHC) website in China, was used as a research data source, and 20,000 consultation cases were collected from the website with Python. After screening and cleaning, 1,601 consultation cases were included in this study. A content analysis-based mixed-methods research approach was applied to analyze these cases.FindingsThe results indicate that with the participation of OHC, there are 15 patterns of consumer health information consultation. Besides OHC, health information sources reported by consumers included medical institutions family/friends and the Internet. Consumers consult on a wide range of health issues including surgical conditions obstetrical and gynecological conditions and other 20 subjects. Consumers have multiple information needs when using OHC: getting prescriptions, diagnosing diseases, making appointments, understanding illnesses, confirming diagnoses and reviewing costs. Through further analysis it was found that consumers’ health information consultation patterns were also significantly different in health issues and health information needs.Originality/valueThis study broadens one’s understanding of consumer health information behavior, which contributes to the field of health information behavior, and also provides insight for OHC stakeholders to improve their services.

The Literacy Demand of Cancer & COVID-19 Consumer Health Information

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-64
Author(s):  
Janet Papadakos ◽  
Violetta Reznikov ◽  
Eleni Giannopoulos ◽  
Meredith Giuliani ◽  
Tina Papadakos
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Consumer Health Information ◽  
Consumer Health
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