Intelligent and affectively aligned evaluation of online health information for older adults

Abstract

Evaluating the quality of online health information has been a primary concern for many years due to its unregulated nature. Individuals living with life-threatening and chronic diseases search online for health information. This information exert influence on their health beliefs, health behaviours, intentions and health care decision making. Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is a major public health concern in Malaysia which is closely related to increased macro- and microvascular complications, as well as higher hospitalisation and mortality rate. The overall prevalence of T2DM in Malaysia is increasing. Quality Evaluation Scoring Tool (QUEST) employed in this study to evaluate the online health information on the management of T2DM. It quantitatively measures six aspects of the quality of online health information including authorship, attribution, conflict of interest, currency, complementarity and tone. Attribution is measured through two items, yielding a seven-item evaluation for six measures of health information quality. Most of the websites demonstrated moderate quality (n= 50) with median quality score of 18 (IQR= 9). The remaining websites were distributed evenly into group of excellent quality (median quality score, 27 [IQR= 3]) and group of very poor quality (median quality score, 11 [IQR= 0]). Among all the websites providing information on management of T2DM, websites owned by private holders accounted for the most (n=30) with median quality score of 17.5 (IQR=9). There were no statistically significant differences found in comparison among website affiliations (P=0.939). The adjusted means for scores of the first three pages and next three pages of search results were 20.8 and 15.1, respectively and the mean difference was -5.6 (95% CI: -9.0, -2.3). First three pages of search results scored significantly better than the next three pages. (P= 0.001)