Quality Assessment of Health Information about Scaphoid Fracture in Chinese Websites (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaobin Yin ◽  
Jianguang Ji ◽  
Peng Lu ◽  
Wenyao Zhong ◽  
Liying Sun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Search Engines ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Scaphoid Fracture ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
The Mean

BACKGROUND With online health information becoming increasingly popular among patients and their family members, concerns have been raised about the accuracy from the websites. OBJECTIVE We aimed to evaluate the overall quality of the online information about scaphoid fracture obtained from Chinese websites using the local search engines. METHODS We conducted an online search using the keyword “scaphoid fracture” from the top 5 search engines in China, i.e. Baidu, Shenma, Haosou, Sougou and Bing, and gathered the top ranked websites, which included a total of 120 websites. Among them, 81 websites were kept for further analyses by removing duplicated and unrelated one as well as websites requiring payment. These websites were classified into four categories, including forum/social networks, commercials, academics and physician’s personals. Health information evaluation tool DISCERN and Scaphoid Fracture Specific Content Score (SFSCS) were used to assess the quality of the websites. RESULTS Among the 81 Chinese websites that we studied, commercial websites were the most common one accounting more than half of all websites. The mean DISCERN score of the 81 websites was 25.56 and no website had a score A (ranging from 64 to 80).The mean SFSCS score was 10.04 and no website had a score A (range between 24 and 30). In addition, DISCERN and SFSCS scores from academic and physician’s websites were significantly higher than those from the forum/social networks and commercials. CONCLUSIONS The overall quality of health information obtained from Chinese websites about scaphoid fracture was very low, suggesting that patients and their family members should be aware such deficiency and pay special attentions for the medical information obtained by using the current search engines in China.

A cross-sectional study on quality of diabetes information identified from the Internet (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingchun Fan ◽  
Jean Craig ◽  
Na Zhao ◽  
Fujian Song
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Search Engine ◽  
Search Engines ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Content Coverage ◽  
Google Search

BACKGROUND Increasingly people seek health information from the Internet, in particular, health information on diseases that require intensive self-management, such as diabetes. However, the Internet is largely unregulated and the quality of online health information may not be credible. OBJECTIVE To assess the quality of online information on diabetes identified from the Internet. METHODS We used the single term “diabetes” or equivalent Chinese characters to search Google and Baidu respectively. The first 50 websites retrieved from each of the two search engines were screened for eligibility using pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Included websites were assessed on four domains: accessibility, content coverage, validity and readability. RESULTS We included 26 websites from Google search engine and 34 from Baidu search engine. There were significant differences in website provider (P<0.0001), but not in targeted population (P=0.832) and publication types (P=0.378), between the two search engines. The website accessibility was not statistically significantly different between the two search engines, although there were significant differences in items regarding website content coverage. There was no statistically significant difference in website validity between the Google and Baidu search engines (mean Discern score 3.3 vs 2.9, p=0.156). The results to appraise readability for English website showed that that Flesch Reading Ease scores ranged from 23.1 to 73.0 and the mean score of Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level ranged range from 5.7 to 19.6. CONCLUSIONS The content coverage of the health information for patients with diabetes in English search engine tended to be more comprehensive than that from Chinese search engine. There was a lack of websites provided by health organisations in China. The quality of online health information for people with diabetes needs to be improved to bridge the knowledge gap between website service and public demand.

Quality of information about mental disease on the Internet: A comparative and longitudinal study of entries form Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Ma ◽  
Lisha Jiang ◽  
Jianchen Luo ◽  
Linli Zheng ◽  
Meiou Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
Information Service ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Positive Trend ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Disease Information ◽  
Medical Network

BACKGROUND The Internet has evolved the approaches of medical information spread. Demands of online information searching on mental disease expanded. The Wikipedia and Baidu Encyclopedia are popular information source. Websites with information on mental disease have not been systematically evaluated. OBJECTIVE The research aimed to estimate the quality of mental disease information on the internet and to evaluate all aspects including timeliness to value the information quality from Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia to help users to make better choice. Besides, establishing a perfect relevant online health information examine and supervision system, in order to satisfy public self-help mental medical information service needs. METHODS We retrieved the entries on mental disease from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision Version 2016 codes on Wikipedia (in English) and Baidu Encyclopedia (in Chinese) in 2018 and 2021. Subject sites were accessed by DISCERN. The comparison between 2 engines as well as 3 years follow-up and timeliness were calculated. RESULTS The number of entries on mental disease we found in 2018 is 34 on Baidu Encyclopedia and 36 on Wikipedia and 37 entries on both Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia in 2021. In 2018, the DISCERN score of Baidu Encyclopedia entries in section 1 and section 3 were lower than those of Wikipedia articles (11.21±4.57 vs 26.25±3.21, p<.001; 2.06±.74 vs 2.53±.94, p<.05). Significantly differences can also be found in total score and all sections in 2021 between 2 engines (total score, 26.29±11.03 vs 44.31±9.77, all 3 sections, p<.001). The DISCERN score of Wikipedia articles during 3 years showed significant increase (all 3 sections, p<.001; total, p<.001). The mean update interval varies greatly from Baidu Encyclopedia (824.79 days in 2018; 945.73 days in 2021) to Wikipedia (34.17 days in 2018;50.46 days in 2021) (p<.001). CONCLUSIONS Despite the general poor quality of mental disease entries in both two engines, Wikipedia expressed to be a better source of online mental disease information compared to Baidu Encyclopedia, with higher reliability, better treatment advice and shorter update interval. Our findings reflected the existing deficit of general website mental health information, suggested a reference for further and better medical network information order. Based on this foundation, it is essential to encourage people to seek professional help rather than believe the ambiguous source information from Internet. The quality of these entries has been improved during 3 years. This positive trend is encouraging that we can expect better online information service in the coming future.

scholarly journals Examining the Interaction Between Medical Information Seeking Online and Understanding: Exploratory Study

JMIR Cancer ◽  
10.2196/13240 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. e13240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rei Kobayashi ◽  
Masato Ishizaki
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Likert Scale ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Information Navigation ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Online Information Seeking

Background Online information seeking on medical topics by patients can have beneficial effects by helping them decide on treatment options and fostering better relationships with doctors. The quality of websites and processes of seeking information online have mostly been studied, with a focus on the accuracy and reliability of websites; however, few studies have examined the relationship between other aspects of quality and the processes of seeking medical information online. Objective This exploratory study aimed to shed light on the quality of websites used for information seeking from the perspective of understanding medical information in combination with seeking it online. Methods The study participants were 15 Japanese university students with no problem using the internet. A questionnaire survey about health literacy (47 items on a 4-point Likert scale) and information navigation skills on the internet (8 items on a 5-point Likert scale) was conducted before participants engaged in online information seeking and qualitative interviews. The students searched for information on a disease and its treatment. The websites viewed were gathered from search behavior recorded by software and browser logs. Follow-up interviews were conducted to elicit explanations from the participants about the assignments and their views of online information seeking. The explanations were evaluated by 55 health care professionals on a 3-point Likert scale and then assessed based on their comments and the participant interviews. Results The mean age of the participants was 20.6 years (median 21; SD 1.06). All participants were able to access reliable websites with information relevant to the assignments. The mean ratings of the students’ explanations were 108.6 (median 109; range=83-134) for the disease and 105.6 (median 104; range=87-117) for its treatment. The inter-rater reliability were 0.84 (95% CI 0.77-0.90) and 0.95 (95% CI 0.93-0.97), indicating good and excellent, respectively. The mean of the sum of the health literacy skills was 115.1 (median 115; range=80-166) and the mean for information navigation skills was 25.9 (median 26; range=17-36), respectively. Health literacy and information navigation skills were moderately correlated (r=0.54; 95% CI 0.033-0.822; P=.04). Among the four stages of health literacy, understanding and appraising (r=0.53; 95% CI 0.025-0.820; P=.04) were moderately correlated with information navigation skills (r=0.52; 95% CI 0.013-0.816; P=.046). The participants had no difficulties operating and browsing the internet and considered medical and public institution websites to be reliable; however, due to unfamiliarity with medical terms, they had difficulties choosing a site from the results obtained and comparing and synthesizing information provided by different sites. They also looked for sites providing orderly information in plain language but provided explanations from sites that gave inadequate interpretations of information. Conclusions This study revealed interactions between searching the internet for, and understanding, medical information by analyzing the processes of information seeking online, physicians’ evaluations and comments about the participants’ explanations, and the participants’ perceptions.

scholarly journals Examining the Interaction Between Medical Information Seeking Online and Understanding: Exploratory Study (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rei Kobayashi ◽  
Masato Ishizaki
Keyword(s):  
Health Literacy ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Likert Scale ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Information Navigation ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Online Information Seeking

BACKGROUND Online information seeking on medical topics by patients can have beneficial effects by helping them decide on treatment options and fostering better relationships with doctors. The quality of websites and processes of seeking information online have mostly been studied, with a focus on the accuracy and reliability of websites; however, few studies have examined the relationship between other aspects of quality and the processes of seeking medical information online. OBJECTIVE This exploratory study aimed to shed light on the quality of websites used for information seeking from the perspective of understanding medical information in combination with seeking it online. METHODS The study participants were 15 Japanese university students with no problem using the internet. A questionnaire survey about health literacy (47 items on a 4-point Likert scale) and information navigation skills on the internet (8 items on a 5-point Likert scale) was conducted before participants engaged in online information seeking and qualitative interviews. The students searched for information on a disease and its treatment. The websites viewed were gathered from search behavior recorded by software and browser logs. Follow-up interviews were conducted to elicit explanations from the participants about the assignments and their views of online information seeking. The explanations were evaluated by 55 health care professionals on a 3-point Likert scale and then assessed based on their comments and the participant interviews. RESULTS The mean age of the participants was 20.6 years (median 21; SD 1.06). All participants were able to access reliable websites with information relevant to the assignments. The mean ratings of the students’ explanations were 108.6 (median 109; range=83-134) for the disease and 105.6 (median 104; range=87-117) for its treatment. The inter-rater reliability were 0.84 (95% CI 0.77-0.90) and 0.95 (95% CI 0.93-0.97), indicating good and excellent, respectively. The mean of the sum of the health literacy skills was 115.1 (median 115; range=80-166) and the mean for information navigation skills was 25.9 (median 26; range=17-36), respectively. Health literacy and information navigation skills were moderately correlated (<italic>r</italic>=0.54; 95% CI 0.033-0.822; <italic>P</italic>=.04). Among the four stages of health literacy, understanding and appraising (<italic>r</italic>=0.53; 95% CI 0.025-0.820; <italic>P</italic>=.04) were moderately correlated with information navigation skills (<italic>r</italic>=0.52; 95% CI 0.013-0.816; <italic>P</italic>=.046). The participants had no difficulties operating and browsing the internet and considered medical and public institution websites to be reliable; however, due to unfamiliarity with medical terms, they had difficulties choosing a site from the results obtained and comparing and synthesizing information provided by different sites. They also looked for sites providing orderly information in plain language but provided explanations from sites that gave inadequate interpretations of information. CONCLUSIONS This study revealed interactions between searching the internet for, and understanding, medical information by analyzing the processes of information seeking online, physicians’ evaluations and comments about the participants’ explanations, and the participants’ perceptions.

scholarly journals The Problems and Needs of Patients Diagnosed with Cancer and Their Caregivers

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Anna Lewandowska ◽  
Grzegorz Rudzki ◽  
Tomasz Lewandowski ◽  
Sławomir Rudzki
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Unmet Needs ◽  
Public Healthcare ◽  
Literature Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Mean ◽  
High Level ◽  
Patients Experience

(1) Background: As the literature analysis shows, cancer patients experience a variety of different needs. Each patient reacts differently to the hardships of the illness. Assessment of needs allows providing more effective support, relevant to every person’s individual experience, and is necessary for setting priorities for resource allocation, for planning and conducting holistic care, i.e., care designed to improve a patient’s quality of life in a significant way. (2) Patients and Methods: A population survey was conducted between 2018 and 2020. Cancer patients, as well as their caregivers, received an invitation to take part in the research, so their problems and needs could be assessed. (3) Results: The study involved 800 patients, 78% women and 22% men. 66% of the subjects were village residents, while 34%—city residents. The mean age of patients was 62 years, SD = 11.8. The patients received proper treatment within the public healthcare. The surveyed group of caregivers was 88% women and 12% men, 36% village residents and 64% city residents. Subjects were averagely 57 years old, SD 7.8. At the time of diagnosis, the subjects most often felt anxiety, despair, depression, feelings of helplessness (46%, 95% CI: 40–48). During illness and treatment, the subjects most often felt fatigued (79%, 95% CI: 70–80). Analysis of needs showed that 93% (95% CI: 89–97) of patients experienced a certain level of need for help in one or more aspects. (4) Conclusions: Patients diagnosed with cancer have a high level of unmet needs, especially in terms of psychological support and medical information. Their caregivers also experience needs and concerns regarding the disease. Caregivers should be made aware of the health consequences of cancer and consider appropriate supportive care for their loved ones.

A Tool for Quantifying the Quality of Online Health Information on Student Health Center Websites (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anagha Kulkarni ◽  
Mike Wong ◽  
Tejasvi Belsare ◽  
Risha Shah ◽  
Diana Yu Yu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Health Center ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Quality ◽  
Online Health Information ◽  
Student Health ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Student Health Center

BACKGROUND The Internet has become a major source of health information especially for adolescents and young adults. Unfortunately, inaccurate, incomplete or outdated health information is widespread online. Often adolescents and young adults turn to authoritative websites such as the student health center (SHC) website of the university they are attending to obtain reliable health information. Although most on-campus SHC clinics comply with the American College Health Association (ACHA) standards, their websites are not subject to any standards or code of conduct. In the absence of quality standards or guidelines, the monitoring and compliance processes do not exist for SHC websites either. As such, there is no oversight on the health information published on the SHC websites by any central governing body. OBJECTIVE Our objective is to enable researchers to monitor online information quality at scale. We have created a tool that can efficiently quantify the quality of information posted on SHC websites about a health topic. Specifically, this quantitative tool provides information on quality, such as reading ease, coverage of the topic, and the degree of fact-based objective information. METHODS Our cross-functional team has designed and developed an open-source software, QMOHI: Quantitative Measures of Online Health Information, using the Agile software development methodology. The QMOHI tool finds the SHC website and gathers information on the specific health topic of interest from a prespecified list of university websites. Based on the retrieved text, the tool computes eight different quality metrics. The QMOHI tool is a fully automated tool that is designed to be scalable, generalizable, and robust. RESULTS The first empirical evaluation shows that the QMOHI tool is highly scalable and substantially more efficient than the manual approach of assessing online information quality. The second experimental results demonstrate QMOHI’s ability to work effectively with starkly different health topics (COVID, Cancer, LARC, and Condom) and with narrowly focused topics (hormonal IUD and copper IUD); thereby establishing the generalizability and versatility of the tool. The results from the last experiment demonstrate that QMOHI is not vulnerable to typical structural changes that SHC websites may undergo (e.g. URL changes) over a long period of time. QMOHI is able to support longitudinal studies by being robust to such website changes. CONCLUSIONS QMOHI allows public health researchers and practitioners to conduct large-scale studies of SHC websites that were previously too time intensive. The capability to generalize broadly or focus narrowly allows for wide applications of QMOHI, equipping researchers to study both mainstream and underexplored health topics. QMOHI’s ability to robustly analyze SHC websites periodically facilitates longitudinal investigations and monitor SHC progress. QMOHI serves as a launching pad for our future work that aims to develop a broadly applicable public health tool for online health information studies with potential applications far beyond SHC websites.

scholarly journals Differences in Perceptions of Health Information Between the Public and Health Care Professionals: Nonprobability Sampling Questionnaire Survey (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anat Gesser-Edelsburg ◽  
Nour Abed Elhadi Shahbari ◽  
Ricky Cohen ◽  
Adva Mir Halavi ◽  
Rana Hijazi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
New Media ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
General Public ◽  
The Public ◽  
Search For Information

BACKGROUND In the new media age, the public searches for information both online and offline. Many studies have examined how the public reads and understands this information but very few investigate how people assess the quality of journalistic articles as opposed to information generated by health professionals. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to examine how public health care workers (HCWs) and the general public seek, read, and understand health information and to investigate the criteria by which they assess the quality of journalistic articles. METHODS A Web-based nonprobability sampling questionnaire survey was distributed to Israeli HCWs and members of the public via 3 social media outlets: Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. A total of 979 respondents participated in the online survey via the Qualtrics XM platform. RESULTS The findings indicate that HCWs find academic articles more reliable than do members of the general public (44.4% and 28.4%, respectively, P<.001). Within each group, we found disparities between the places where people search for information and the sources they consider reliable. HCWs consider academic articles to be the most reliable, yet these are not their main information sources. In addition, HCWs often use social networks to search for information (18.2%, P<.001), despite considering them very unreliable (only 2.2% found them reliable, P<.001). The same paradoxes were found among the general public, where 37.5% (P<.001) seek information via social networks yet only 8.4% (P<.001) find them reliable. Out of 6 quality criteria, 4 were important both to HCWs and to the general public. CONCLUSIONS In the new media age where information is accessible to all, the quality of articles about health is of critical importance. It is important that the criteria examined in this research become the norm in health writing for all stakeholders who write about health, whether they are professional journalists or citizen journalists writing in the new media.

Mining of Medical Trends Using Social Networks

2016 ◽  
pp. 164-182
Author(s):  
Shruti Kohli ◽  
Sonia Saini
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Public Health Information ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Post Marketing ◽  
The Media

Recent work in machine learning and natural language processing has studied the content of health related information in tweets and demonstrated the potential for extracting useful public health information from their aggregation. Social intelligence derived from health content has become of significant importance for various applications, including post-marketing drug surveillance, competitive intelligence, medicine reviews and to assess health-related opinions and sentiments. Further, the quantity of medical information in the media such as tweets on Twitter, Facebook or medical blogs is growing at an exponential rate. Medical data such as health records, drug data, etc. has become major candidates for Big Data analysis and thus exploring this content has become a necessity for organizations. However, the volume, velocity, variety, and quality of online health information present challenges, necessitating enhanced facilitation mechanisms for medical social computing. The objective of this chapter is to discuss the possibility of mining medical trends using Social Networks.

Qualitative evaluation of paediatric surgical otolaryngology content on YouTube

2020 ◽  
Vol 134 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
B Ward ◽  
R Bavier ◽  
C Warren ◽  
J Yan ◽  
B Paskhover
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Qualitative Evaluation ◽  
Video Content ◽  
Medical Decisions ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
The Mean

AbstractObjectiveThis study evaluated the quality of YouTube content focusing on common paediatric otolaryngology procedures, as this content can influence the opinions and medical decisions of patients.MethodsA total of 120 YouTube videos were compiled to review using the terms ‘adenoid removal’, ‘adenoidectomy’, ‘ear tubes’, ‘tympanostomy’, ‘tonsil removal’ and ‘tonsillectomy’. The Discern criteria was used to rate the quality of health information presented in each video.ResultsThe mean bias Discern score was 3.18 and the mean overall Discern score was 2.39. Videos including US board certified physicians were rated significantly higher (p < 0.001) than videos without (bias Discern score = 3.00 vs 2.38; overall Discern score = 3.79 vs 1.55). The videos had been viewed a total of 176 769 549 times.ConclusionUnbiased, high quality videos on YouTube are lacking. As patients may rely on this information when making medical decisions, it is important that practitioners continually evaluate and improve this video content. Otolaryngologists should be prepared to discuss YouTube content with patients.

scholarly journals Wikipedia: A Medical Student Educational Project to Edit Wikipedia in Preparation for Practicing Evidence-Based Pain Medicine

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 238212052095969
Author(s):  
Diana Kantarovich ◽  
Hanna B Vollbrecht ◽  
Sebastian A Cruz ◽  
Hector Castillo ◽  
Cody S Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Evidence Based Medicine ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Medical Curriculum ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Pain Medicine ◽  
Based Medicine

Objective: Wikipedia is commonly used to acquire information about various medical conditions such as chronic pain. Ideally, better online pain management content could reduce the burden of opioid use disorders. Our goal was to improve the quality of the content available on Wikipedia to make it more accurate and applicable to medical students and the general public while training medical students to practice evidence-based medicine and critically assess their sources of information. Methods: An elective class in Neuroscience, Pain, and Opioids composed of 10 medical students met biweekly to discuss landmark and practice-changing research articles in the fields of acute pain, chronic pain, and opioid management. The professor chose Wikipedia articles relevant to this course. Three independent viewers analyzed the quality of citations, anecdotal medical content, and content value for both patients and medical professionals. As part of their coursework, students then edited the Wikipedia articles. Results: Although some of the Wikipedia pain topic content (6.7% ± 2.0) was anecdotal, financially biased, or inconsistent with Western Medical Practice content, overall articles included primarily high-quality citations (85.6% ± 3.1). On a 0-5 Likert scale, students felt content would be moderately helpful for both medical students/professionals (3.4 ± 0.2) and laypersons (3.5 ± 0.2). Editing and adding citations was feasible, but novel material was often reverted. Conclusion: A significant amount of pain medicine content was relevant and amenable to student editing. Therefore, future use of this tactic could provide a unique opportunity to integrate evidence-based medicine into the medical curriculum and have a direct impact on the widely available medical information. Future refinement in the editorial process may also further improve online information.

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