Websites as a tool for public health education: determining the trustworthiness of health websites on Ebola disease

BMC Med Inform Decis Mak

Rahmatizadeh

Soleimaninejad

et al. 2021

Self Cite

Background The Elderly and their caregivers need credible health information to manage elderly chronic diseases and help them to be involved in health decision making. In this regard, health websites are considered as a potential source of information for elderlies as well as their caregivers. Nevertheless, the credibility of these websites has not been identified yet. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the credibility of the health websites on the most prevalent chronic diseases of the elderly. Methods The terms “Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease”, “Alzheimer's”, “Ischemic heart disease”, and “Stroke” were searched using the three popular search engines. A total of 216 unique websites were eligible for evaluation. The study was carried out using the HONcode of conduct. The chi-square test was carried out to determine the difference between conforming and nonconforming websites with HONcode principles and website categories. Results The findings showed that half of the evaluated websites had fully considered the HONcode principles. Furthermore, there was a significant difference between websites category and compliance with HONcode principles (p value < .05). Conclusion Regarding the poor credibility of most prevalent elderly diseases’ websites, the potential online health information users should be aware of the low credibility of such websites, which may seriously threaten their health. Furthermore, educating the elderly and their caregivers to evaluate the credibility of websites by the use of popular tools such as HONcode of conducts before utilizing their information seems to be necessary.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Are health websites credible enough for elderly self-education in the most prevalent elderly diseases?

BMC Med Inform Decis Mak

Rahmatizadeh

Soleimaninejad

et al. 2021

Self Cite

“…Furthermore, the results of the present study were consistent with the results of similar studies conducted on the evaluation of non-Persian language websites in other health topics. Their findings showed unreliability and poor quality of health websites [34][35][36][37].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persian language health websites on Ebola disease: less credible than you think?

Ansari

Hamzehei

J. Egypt. Public. Health. Assoc.

2020

Self Cite

Background: Ebola virus disease is an emergency situation in the area of international public health for which currently, there is no standard treatment. Thus, there is an essential need for awareness of individuals about the Ebola disease and consequently its prevention. Internet and health websites are considered a source of health information about certain diseases. Therefore, in this study, the credibility of Persian-language websites on Ebola is assessed. Materials and methods: The term "Ebola" was searched using the Yahoo, Google, and Bing search engines. The first 30 websites resulting from each search engine were studied. Persian language was a prerequisite for inclusion. Duplicate and inaccessible websites were excluded and 62 websites were retained for evaluation. These websites were manually assessed by the researchers. The research tool was HONcode official toolbar as well as the checklist set by the researchers based on the HONcode of Conduct tool. The data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 software. Results: None of the retrieved websites was officially approved by the HONcode of Conduct. Moreover, the manual evaluation showed that none of them had fully considered the eight criteria of HONcode. The results showed that most of the retrieved websites (62%) were commercial. The justifiability criterion had been considered in 89% of the studied websites, but the authority criterion had been considered by only 16% of the websites. Conclusion and recommendations: Regarding the poor reliability of Persian websites on the Ebola disease, and considering that Persian language people prefer to read the information in their native language, it is recommended that the authorized health organizations introduce reliable health websites in the Persian language. This will help them to take part in active healthcare decision-making and disease prevention. Moreover, it is necessary to educate people especially Persian language ones about the website evaluation tools, which can be used to assess the credibility of health websites before consuming the information on those websites.

“…HONcode is the oldest and most-used ethical and trustworthiness code for medical and health-related information available on the Internet [64]. It is reliable and has been used in multiple studies to assess the credibility of health websites [11,12,[14][15][16][65][66][67]. Therefore, we used the HONcode toolbar to identify certified websites containing information on COVID-19.…”

Section: Credibility Evaluation Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On March 13, 2020, Google Trends reported that the term "coronavirus" was searched five million times (supplemental appendix), underlining the importance of the Internet as a source for health information. However, multiple studies demonstrate that health websites may not be credible and may contain inaccurate or misleading information [11][12][13][14][15][16]. Therefore, the information found on health websites could increase uncertainty and anxiety and, thereby, serve to harm people's health [17][18][19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health websites on COVID-19: are they readable and credible enough to help public self-care?

Khazaal

Rahmatizadeh

2021

jmla

Self Cite

Objective: There are concerns about nonscientific and/or unclear information on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that is available on the Internet. Furthermore, people’s ability to understand health information varies and depends on their skills in reading and interpreting information. This study aims to evaluate the readability and creditability of websites with COVID-19-related information.Methods: The search terms “coronavirus,” “COVID,” and “COVID-19” were input into Google. The websites of the first thirty results for each search term were evaluated in terms of their credibility and readability using the Health On the Net Foundation code of conduct (HONcode) and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), Gunning Fog, and Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRE) scales, respectively.Results: The readability of COVID-19-related health information on websites was suitable for high school graduates or college students and, thus, was far above the recommended readability level. Most websites that were examined (87.2%) had not been officially certified by HONcode. There was no significant difference in the readability scores of websites with and without HONcode certification.Conclusion: These results suggest that organizations should improve the readability of their websites and provide information that more people can understand. This could lead to greater health literacy, less health anxiety, and the provision of better preventive information about the disease.