Instruments to assess the quality of health information on the World Wide Web: what can our patients actually use?

Bernstam, Elmer V.; Shelton, Dawn M.; Walji, Muhammad F.; Meric‐Bernstam, Funda

doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2004.10.001

Cited by 212 publications

(137 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Common (albeit not absolutely perfect) scales of measuring English language levels are the Flesch Reading Ease and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. 18 The Flesch Reading Ease score of the consent form was determined to be 57.3, and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level was determined to be 8.9, indicating that the students would have little trouble in understanding the consent form.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of mobile learning by 6th-year medical students in a minimally-supported environment

Masters

AlRawahi

2012

Int J Med Educ

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Objectives: The study aims to identify the impact of minimal support on medical students' mobile learning activities. Methods:The study was performed at the Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, on 129 medical students in their 7 th year.The study consisted of a quantitative survey of the students, focussing on their mobile learning activities during their 6 th year, while using their own mobile devices (such as smart phones) for mobile learning activities. In addition, their perceptions of barriers to, and advantages of, using mobile devices were investigated. Data were analysed using Microsoft Excel and EpiInfo.Results: All students used their mobile device as telephones and used most of the sophisticated applications. There was significantly less usage made of medical applications, such as clinical guidelines and medical reference tools. Barriers were screen size, cost, limited memory and battery. Advantages were time-saving, ease of access and use. Few students (14%) highlighted lack of institutional support as a problem.Conclusions: Lack of support does not mean lack of usage. It does, however, mean predominantly simple usage. Given the importance of mobile devices in modern medical practice, this has strong negative implications for the professional preparedness of students studying in such environments.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The use of mobile learning by 6th-year medical students in a minimally-supported environment

Masters

AlRawahi

2012

Int J Med Educ

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“…A systematic review has reported over 250 distinct instruments for clients to assess internet health information (Bernstam et al, 2005). For example, clients can use the 16-item DISCERN quality criteria (Charnock et al, 1999) to determine the quality of health information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality and readability of English-language internet information for adults with hearing impairment and their significant others

Laplante-Lévesque¹,

Brännström²,

Andersson³

et al. 2012

International Journal of Audiology

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Keywordshearing impairment, hearing aids, internet health information, health information quality, health information readability A. Laplante-Lévesque et al. 2 AbstractObjective: This study evaluated the quality and readability of English-language internet information for adults with hearing impairment and their significant others.Design: Two keyword pairs (hearing loss and hearing aids) were entered into five country-specific versions of the most commonly used internet search engine in May 2011.Sample: For each of the 10 searches, the first 10 relevant websites were included. After removing duplicates, a total of 66 websites were assessed. Their origin (commercial, non-profit organization, or government), date of last update, quality (Health On the Net -HON-certification and DISCERN scores), and readability (Flesch Reading Ease Score, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula, and Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook) were assessed.Results: Most websites were of commercial origin and had been updated within the last 18 months. Their quality and readability was highly variable. Only 14% of the websites had HON certification. Websites that were of non-profit organization origin had significantly higher DISCERN scores. Readability measures show that on average, only people with at least 11-12 years of education could read and understand the internet information presented.Conclusions: Based on these results, this article provides a list of recommendations for website developers and clinicians wishing to incorporate internet information into their practice. internet information 3

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“…However, communication between health professionals and patients is inherently problematic. From the perspective of a health professional, a number of barriers exist, including the use of technical terminology, the volume of information to be conveyed, time constraints and lack of familiarity with the information on the patient's part (6)(7)(8)(9). The Internet has a number of advantages over other formats for communicating health information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The quality of internet information relating to oral leukoplakia

López‐Jornet

Camacho-Alonso²

2010

Med Oral

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Objectives: The Internet provides great opportunities for patient healthcare education, but poses risks that inaccurate, outdated or harmful information will be disseminated. Our objective was determine the quality of the information available on the internet in relation to oral leukoplakia. Study design: Sites were identified using 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN), and the search term "oral leukoplakia". The first 100 consecutive sites in each search were visited and classified. The websites were evaluated for quality of content by using the validated DISCERN rating instrument and the JAMA benchmarks; the existence of the Health on the Net (HON) seal was also registered. Results: The Google search yielded 54.300 sites for oral leukoplakia, while Yahoo yielded 243.000 and MSN 103.000. We reviewed 21 Google websites, 20 Yahoo websites and 19 MSN. Based on the JAMA benchmarks, only 4 sites (19.1%) met the four criteria in the Google search, versus 2 sites (10%) in the Yahoo and 5 (26.3%) in MSN. With the DISCERN instrument, no site obtained the maximum score, with Google 13 sites presented serious deficiencies (61.9%), in the Yahoo search 14 (70%), and in MSN 15 (78.9%). Lastly, 4 of the Google sites (19.1%), four of the Yahoo sites (20%) and 2 (10.5%) MSN sites presented the HON seal.Conclusions: The quality of the health care information related to oral leukoplakia on the internet is poor.

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Instruments to assess the quality of health information on the World Wide Web: what can our patients actually use?

Cited by 212 publications

References 11 publications

The use of mobile learning by 6th-year medical students in a minimally-supported environment

The use of mobile learning by 6th-year medical students in a minimally-supported environment

Quality and readability of English-language internet information for adults with hearing impairment and their significant others

The quality of internet information relating to oral leukoplakia

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