Health Information Seals of Approval: What do they Signify?

Abstract

Much of the health information available to consumers on the Internet is incomplete, out of date, and even inaccurate. Seals of approval or trustmarks have been suggested as a strategy to assist consumers to identify high quality information. Little is known, however, about how consumers interpret such seals.This study addresses this issue by examining assumptions about the quality criteria that are reflected by a seal of approval. This question is of particular importance because a wide variety of quality criteria have been suggested for online health information, including core aspects of quality such as accuracy, currency, and completeness, proxy indicators of quality such as the disclosure of commercial interests, and indicators that reflect the quality of the site or the interaction it affords, such as the availability of a search mechanism. The results of this study suggest that seals of approval are assumed to certify information quality primarily with respect to core quality indicators, aspects that subjects both consider to be important and feel relatively less able to evaluate for themselves (compared to their ability to rate proxy indicators of information or indicators of site or interaction quality). This assumption is largely inconsistent with practice: most seals of approval involve assessment of proxy indicators of information quality, rather than direct assessment of content. These results identify a problem that certification or accreditation bodies must address, since unless and until consumer expectations are congruent with evaluation practice, seals of approval seem to promise more than they deliver.

Characteristics and Quality of Autism Websites

“…4). However, consumers must still use caution since many seals can be gained without an assessment of the quality of information contained on the website and might be misleading (Burkell 2004;Gagliardi and Jadad 2002;Jadad and Gagliardi 1998). Finally, websites that we coded as being a health information site appear to have higher quality than websites with more general purposes (e.g., individual's site/forum/blog, news site; see Fig.…”

“…Multiple quality assessment tools have also been created to aid consumers in appraising general health websites (Bernstam et al 2005;Burkell 2004;Charnock 1998;Fallis and Fricke 2001;Kim et al 1999) and standards for online health-related information have been proposed (e.g., eEurope 2002; Health on the Net Foundation 2010; MedlinePlus 2010; Silberg et al 1997). However, the utility of the assessment tools and quality standards have been questioned (Bernstam et al 2005;Gagliardi and Jadad 2002;Jadad and Gagliardi 1998;Kunst et al 2002) and neither have been systematically applied to websites containing information on ASDs.…”

Going online for health advice: Changes in usage and trust practices over the last five years

“…Unfortunately the presence of such codes and awards appears to have no significant effect on the credibility or retention of health information on a web page (Shon et al, 2000). Furthermore, consumer expectations of such health seals are often incongruent with practice (Burkell, 2004). Other researchers have been interested in empowering health consumers to judge the quality of the information they find on the Internet for themselves.…”

Quality of patient health information on the internet: reviewing a complex and

“…They are accuracy, completeness and currency of information. 5 These criteria are the gold standard for evaluating health information on the internet. However, their use is limited because of the need for expert inputevaluating every health website using these criteria would be impossible.…”