Leveraging the Ability of the Online Health Information Seekers to Find Credible Online Sources

Abstract

Background: The spread of misinformation about different health issues, has become a growing threat nowadays. The process of identifying credible information became a real problem of high urgency. It took a new dimension with the creation of numerous web platforms and the ubiquity of internet coverage. During the current pandemic of COVID-19, misinformation is not the only challenge, the infodemic is another serious consequence of growing digitization. Infodemic is defined as an excessive amount of information about a problem that is typically unreliable, false, or misleading, spreads rapidly, and makes a solution more difficult to achieve. This causes anxiety and mistrust in health authorities, leading to decrease capacities for decision-making and undermining public responses, especially during disease outbreaks or pandemics. Aim: The current study was designed to evaluate the effect of implementing a digital intervention training module, to educate participants about choosing credible online health information, according to the quality standards and protocols. Methods: This is a quasi-experimental study with pre/post-assessment comparisons. It took place between October 2019 and May 2020 with the recruitment of a group of 480 medical students, from the 1st, the 2nd, and the 3rd academic years, at the Faculty of Medicine. They were assigned to an intervention and a control group. The intervention group attended the digital health module, which was conducted online with both its theoretical and practical components. Participants responded to the pre- and post-online questionnaire through google forms, in addition to a post-intervention assessment. Results: Results showed post-assessment significant improvements in all items related to seeking online health information and the ability to check the credibility of such information, among the intervention group in comparison to the control group with p-value< 0.05. Conclusion: The infodemic caused by COVID- 19 pandemic, with all its associated psychological pressure and panic due to misinformation, made it crucial to disseminate awareness about credible digital information sources. Targeted digital health interventions regarding online health information quality and credibility, are highly promising, due to the safe outreach and accessibility without any physical contact, especially during the pandemic time.

Upper Limb Prostheses by the Level of Amputation: A Systematic Review

“…Finally, for fourteen commercial prostheses: three [42,68,106] were found in 2018, three [104,107,122] in 2019, none in 2020, four [102,103,119,121] in 2021, three [43,105,120] in 2022, and one [67] in 2023.…”

“…Expanding into prosthesis models working around haptics, commercial models such as Psyonic are implementing haptic feedback systems that can provide the user with the sensation of touch in proportion to the force applied by the fingers of the prosthesis on the object or surface [102]. Romero and Elias [133] have designed interfaces that can accommodate different models of prostheses with wireless units for monitoring stages, such as the placement of force and inertial sensors in the prosthetic hand, as well as the actuation stage, which includes a wristband with vibration motors.…”

“…For transcarpal amputation, 25 developments were found divided in the following way: 10 are mentioned in scientific articles [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53], 13 are mentioned in invention patents [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66], and 2 in commercial prostheses [67,68]. In the transradial amputation, 40 developments were found divided in the following way: 24 are mentioned in scientific articles , 10 are mentioned in invention patents [92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101], and 6 in commercial prostheses [102][103][104][105][106][107]. For transhumeral amputation, 18 developments were found divided in the following way: 10 are mentioned in scientific articles [35,36,[108][109][110]…”