Quality of Novel coronavirus related health information over the Internet: An evaluation study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashish Joshi ◽  
Fnu Kajal ◽  
Priya Sharma ◽  
Ashruti Bhatt ◽  
Kanishk Kumar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Information Dissemination ◽  
Keyword Search ◽  
Large Family ◽  
Evaluation Study ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Kappa Statistics ◽  
Quality Of Information ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

BACKGROUND A Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak was declared a pandemic by the WHO on March 11, 2020. The 2019 n-CoV is a virus that is known to belong to a large family of coronaviruses which have affected the human kind in the past also like; SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV. As of today, April 12 2020, there are 1.78 million total Coronavirus Cases, 108,880 deaths and 404,581 recovered cases. Public health experts worry that the spread of COVID-19 could be worsened by misinformation. It is important to analyze the information available on the internet in regard to COVID-19. OBJECTIVE To evaluate quality of COVID-19 related health information over the internet using DISCERN tool. METHODS 100 URLs were generated by search engine Google in March 2020 by selecting the first 20 websites that appeared in the results of various keyword search. The keywords used in this search included “Coronavirus”, “Coronavirus causes”, “Coronavirus diagnosis”, “Coronavirus prevention” and “Coronavirus management”. The 16 item DISCERN tool was used to evaluate the quality of COVID-19 related information available on internet. Inter-rater reliability agreement was calculated using kappa statistics. RESULTS Results showed variation in how the raters assigned scores to different website categories. The lowest scores were received by .com websites. Results showed that .edu and .org, website category sites were excellent in communicating novel coronavirus related health information; however, they received lower scores for treatment effect and treatment choices. CONCLUSIONS The critical gaps in the available quality of information were assessed in context to COVID-19 and help us to evaluate the quality of information available and can guide the users to choose between various websites. If inaccurate information is being spread, that site should be closed down or some regulatory provisions should also be framed in this regard. One recommendation could be that websites, once ranked with trust marks, can be popularized to public for better information dissemination.

scholarly journals Quality of Novel Coronavirus Related Health Information over the Internet: An Evaluation Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashish Joshi ◽  
Fnu Kajal ◽  
Soumitra S. Bhuyan ◽  
Priya Sharma ◽  
Ashruti Bhatt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Search Engine ◽  
Evaluation Study ◽  
World Health ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Search Term ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Background. The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread globally from its epicenter in Hubei, China, and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. The most popular search engine worldwide is Google, and since March 2020, COVID-19 has been a global trending search term. Misinformation related to COVID-19 from these searches is a problem, and hence, it is of high importance to assess the quality of health information over the internet related to COVID-19. The objective of our study is to examine the quality of COVID-19 related health information over the internet using the DISCERN tool. Methods. The keywords included in assessment of COVID-19 related information using Google’s search engine were “Coronavirus,” “Coronavirus causes,” “Coronavirus diagnosis,” “Coronavirus prevention,” and “Coronavirus management”. The first 20 websites from each search term were gathered to generate a list of 100 URLs. Duplicate sites were excluded from this search, allowing analysis of unique sites only. Additional exclusion criteria included scientific journals, nonoperational links, nonfunctional websites (where the page was not loading, was not found, or was inactive), and websites in languages other than English. This resulted in a unique list of 48 websites. Four independent raters evaluated the websites using a 16-item DISCERN tool to assess the quality of novel coronavirus related information available on the internet. The interrater reliability agreement was calculated using the intracluster correlation coefficient. Results. Results showed variation in how the raters assigned scores to different website categories. The .com websites received the lowest scores. Results showed that .edu and .org website category sites were excellent in communicating coronavirus related health information; however, they received lower scores for treatment effect and treatment choices. Conclusion. This study highlights the gaps in the quality of information that is available on the websites related to COVID-19 and study emphasizes the need for verified websites that provide evidence-based health information related to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

scholarly journals Assessment of quality of information available over the internet about vegan diet

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 1142-1152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Genevieve El Jassar ◽  
Isobel Nadia El Jassar ◽  
Evangelos I. Kritsotakis
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Vegan Diet ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Quality Of Information ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Flesch Reading Ease ◽  
Written Information

Purpose This paper aims to assess the quality of health information available to patients seeking online advice about the vegan diet. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional sample of patient-oriented websites was selected by searching for “Vegan diet” in the three most popular search engines. The first 50 websites from each search were examined. Quality of information was assessed using the DISCERN instrument, a questionnaire tool designed to judge the quality of written information on treatment choices. Readability was determined with the Flesch Reading Ease score (FRES) and Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL). Relevance to health and disease was assessed by counting the appearances of ten related keywords, generated by searching the query term “Vegan diet” into PubMed and recording the top ten health-related words. Findings Of 150 websites retrieved, 67 (44.7 per cent) met inclusion criteria. Of these, 42 (62.7 per cent) were non-pharmaceutical commercial, 7 (10.4 per cent) institutional, 6 (9.0 per cent) magazines or newspapers, 4 (6.0 per cent) support websites, 4 (6.0 per cent) charitable websites, 2 (3.0 per cent) encyclopedias and 2 (3.0 per cent) personal blogs. The overall DISCERN rating of the websites was fair (mean 41.6 ± 15.4 on an 80-point scale), but nearly half (31/67) of the websites were assessed as having “poor” or “very poor” quality of information. FRES and FKGL readability indices met the recommended standards on average (means 63.3 ± 9.6 and 6.6 ± 1.7, respectively), but did not correlate with high DISCERN ratings. Analysis of variance on DISCERN scores (F(6,60) = 6.536, p < 0.001) and FRES (F(6,60) = 2.733, p = 0.021) yielded significant variation according to website source type. Originality/value Quality standards of health information available on the internet about the vegan diet vary greatly. Patients are at risk of exposure to low quality and potentially misleading information over the internet and should be consulting dietitians or physicians to avoid being misled.

A Methodology to Analyze the Quality of Health Information on the Internet

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sundeep Chumber ◽  
Jörg Huber ◽  
Pietro Ghezzi
Keyword(s):  
American Medical Association ◽  
Medical Association ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Scoring System ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Quality Of Information ◽  
Patient Groups ◽  
Assess Quality ◽  
Available Information

Purpose The purpose of this work was to evaluate the criteria used to assess the quality of information on diabetic neuropathy on the Internet. Methods Different search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask) and 1 governmental health website (MedlinePlus) were studied. The websites returned (200 for each search engine) were then classified according to their affiliation (eg, commercial, professional, patient groups). A scoring system was devised from the literature to assess quality of information. Websites were also analyzed using the 2 most widely used instruments for assessing the quality of health information, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) scoring system and the Health On the Net Foundation (HON) certification. Results Professional websites or health portals scored better according to most criteria. Google and MedlinePlus returned results scoring significantly higher than other engines in some of the criteria. The use of different instruments gave different results and indicates that the JAMA score and the HON certification may not be sufficient ones. Conclusions This methodology could be used to evaluate the reliability and trustworthiness of information on the Internet on different topics to identify topic areas or websites where the available information is not appropriate.

scholarly journals Misinformation of COVID-19 on the Internet: Infodemiology Study

10.2196/18444 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. e18444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Yunam Cuan-Baltazar ◽  
Maria José Muñoz-Perez ◽  
Carolina Robledo-Vega ◽  
Maria Fernanda Pérez-Zepeda ◽  
Elena Soto-Vega
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
Search Time ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Search For Information

Background The internet has become an important source of health information for users worldwide. The novel coronavirus caused a pandemic search for information with broad dissemination of false or misleading health information. Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality and readability of online information about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which was a trending topic on the internet, using validated instruments and relating the quality of information to its readability. Methods The search was based on the term “Wuhan Coronavirus” on the Google website (February 6, 2020). At the search time, the terms “COVID-19” or “SARS-CoV-2” (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) did not exist. Critical analysis was performed on the first 110 hits using the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark, the DISCERN instrument, and Google ranking. Results The first 110 websites were critically analyzed, and only 1.8% (n=2) of the websites had the HONcode seal. The JAMA benchmark showed that 39.1% (n=43) of the websites did not have any of the categories required by this tool, and only 10.0% (11/110) of the websites had the four quality criteria required by JAMA. The DISCERN score showed that 70.0% (n=77) of the websites were evaluated as having a low score and none were rated as having a high score. Conclusions Nonhealth personnel and the scientific community need to be aware about the quality of the information they read and produce, respectively. The Wuhan coronavirus health crisis misinformation was produced by the media, and the misinformation was obtained by users from the internet. The use of the internet has a risk to public health, and, in cases like this, the governments should be developing strategies to regulate health information on the internet without censuring the population. By February 6, 2020, no quality information was available on the internet about COVID-19.

scholarly journals Misinformation of COVID-19 on the Internet: Infodemiology Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Yunam Cuan-Baltazar ◽  
Maria José Muñoz-Perez ◽  
Carolina Robledo-Vega ◽  
Maria Fernanda Pérez-Zepeda ◽  
Elena Soto-Vega
Keyword(s):  
Health Information ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
Search Time ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Search For Information

BACKGROUND The internet has become an important source of health information for users worldwide. The novel coronavirus caused a pandemic search for information with broad dissemination of false or misleading health information. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality and readability of online information about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which was a trending topic on the internet, using validated instruments and relating the quality of information to its readability. METHODS The search was based on the term “Wuhan Coronavirus” on the Google website (February 6, 2020). At the search time, the terms “COVID-19” or “SARS-CoV-2” (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) did not exist. Critical analysis was performed on the first 110 hits using the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark, the DISCERN instrument, and Google ranking. RESULTS The first 110 websites were critically analyzed, and only 1.8% (n=2) of the websites had the HONcode seal. The JAMA benchmark showed that 39.1% (n=43) of the websites did not have any of the categories required by this tool, and only 10.0% (11/110) of the websites had the four quality criteria required by JAMA. The DISCERN score showed that 70.0% (n=77) of the websites were evaluated as having a low score and none were rated as having a high score. CONCLUSIONS Nonhealth personnel and the scientific community need to be aware about the quality of the information they read and produce, respectively. The Wuhan coronavirus health crisis misinformation was produced by the media, and the misinformation was obtained by users from the internet. The use of the internet has a risk to public health, and, in cases like this, the governments should be developing strategies to regulate health information on the internet without censuring the population. By February 6, 2020, no quality information was available on the internet about COVID-19.

Review of the Quality of Information on Bipolar Disorder on the Internet

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (10) ◽  
pp. 934-945 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caryl Barnes ◽  
Robin Harvey ◽  
Alex Wilde ◽  
Dusan Hadzi-Pavlovic ◽  
Kay Wilhelm ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Quality Of Information

A COMPARISON OF PATIENT AND HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL VIEWS WHEN ASSESSING QUALITY OF INFORMATION ON PITUITARY ADENOMA AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1217-1222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irena Druce ◽  
Chantal Williams ◽  
Carolyn Baggoo ◽  
Erin Keely ◽  
Janine Malcolm
Keyword(s):  
Pituitary Adenoma ◽  
Healthcare Professional ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Quality Of Information
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