Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

An Information Reliability Index as a Simple Consumer-Oriented Indication of Quality of Medical Web Sites

  • Chapter
Quality Issues in the Management of Web Information

Part of the book series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library ((ISRL,volume 50))

Abstract

Since typical healthcare consumers may lack sufficient knowledge to evaluate the reliability of health-related contents published online, recent researches are addressing the usefulness of Web page evaluation tools to help these consumers assess the quality of the indications they retrieve online. This paper contributes in this line by proposing an intentionally simple composite index of information quality, the so called Medical Information Reliability (MIR) index. This index takes the attitudes of potential and actual consumers toward information quality into account, and it is intended to be applied to online sources of medical information as “trust indicator” to provide their potential consumers with a simple percentage score by which to evaluate the reliability of what they are consulting. The main idea underlying this index is to consider information quality a multidimensional aspect of an online resource and relate it to the extent such a resource is compliant with explicit requirements formulated by third-party endorsement bodies. The method to calculate the MIR index on a sample of medical sites is presented in a step-by-step manner, and a user study is discussed that validated its application to the domain of the Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Sillence, E., et al.: How do patients evaluate and make use of online health information? Social Science & Medicine 64(9), 1853–1862 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Atkinson, N.L., et al.: Using the Internet for Health-Related Activities: Findings From a National Probability Sample. Journal of Medical Internet Research 11(1), e4 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Baker, L.: Use of the Internet and E-mail for Health Care Information: Results From a National Survey. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 289(18), 2400–2406 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Cabitza, F.: Introducing a Composite Index of Information Quality for Medical Web Sites. In: Quality of Life thorugh Quality of Information - Proceedings of the 24th Conference of the European Federation for Medical Informatics, MIE 2012, August 26-29, Pisa, Italy (2012) (forthcoming)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Gustafson, D.: Evaluation of ehealth systems and services. BMJ 328(7449), 1150–1150 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Bernstam, E.V., et al.: Commonly cited website quality criteria are not effective at identifying inaccurate online information about breast cancer. Cancer 112(6), 1206–1213 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Silberg, W.M., et al.: Assessing, Controlling, and Assuring the Quality of Medical Information on the Internet: Caveant Lector et Viewor–Let the Reader and Viewer Beware. JAMA 277(15), 1244–1245 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Eysenbach, G.: Empirical Studies Assessing the Quality of Health Information for Consumers on the World Wide Web: A Systematic Review. JAMA 287(20), 2691–2700 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Xu, Y., et al.: Relevance judgment: What do information users consider beyond topicality? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 57(7), 961–973 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Bailey, B.P., et al.: An examination of trust production in computer-mediated exchange. In: Proceedings of the 7th Conference on Human Factors and the Web (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Breckons, M., et al.: What Do Evaluation Instruments Tell Us About the Quality of Complementary Medicine Information on the Internet? JMIR 10(1), e3 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Chang, M.K., et al.: Online Trust Production: Interactions among Trust Building Mechanisms [Internet], p. 181c. IEEE (cited January 27, 2012)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Delamothe, T.: Quality of websites: kite marking the west wind. British Medical Journal 7, 843–844 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Stvilia, B., et al.: A model for online consumer health information quality. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 60(9), 1781–1791 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Spink, A., et al.: From highly relevant to not relevant: examining different regions of relevance. Information Processing & Management 34(5), 599–621 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Zeithaml, V.A., et al.: Service quality delivery through web sites: A critical review of extant knowledge. Journal of the Academic of Marketing Science 30, 362–375 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Stanford, J., et al.: Experts vs. online consumers: A comparative credibility study of health and finance web sites. Consumer Reports WebWatch (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Potts, H.W.W., Wyatt, J.C.: Survey of Doctors’ Experience of Patients Using the Internet. Journal of Medical Internet Research 4(1), e5 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Sillence, E., et al.: Trust and mistrust of online health sites. In: Proceedings of CHI 2004, pp. 663–670 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Tao, D., et al.: Consumer Perspectives on Quality Attributes in Evaluating Health Websites [Internet]. IEEE (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Hanif, F., et al.: The role of quality tools in assessing reliability of the Internet for health information. Informatics for Health and Social Care 34(4), 231–243 (2009)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  22. Pletneva, N., et al.: Results of the 10th HON survey on health and medical Internet use [Internet]. Health on the Net Foundation, Geneva (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Bliemel, M., Hassanein, K.: Consumer satisfaction with online health information retrieval: A model and empirical study. E-Service Journal 5(2), 53–84 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Fox, S.: Online Health Search 2006 [Internet]. PEW Internet & American Life Project (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Baur, C., Deering, M.J.: Proposed frameworks to improve the quality of health websites: review. Medscape General Medicine 26(e35) (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Hanif, F., et al.: The quality of information about kidney transplantation on the World Wide Web. Clinical Transplantation 21(3), 371–376 (2007)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  27. Kalichman, S.C.: Quality of Health Information on the Internet. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 286(17), 2092–2095 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Schmidt, K., Ernst, E.: Assessing websites on complementary and alternative medicine for cancer. Annals of Oncology 15(5), 733–742 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Goldstein, M.S.: The growing acceptance of complementary and alternative medicine. In: Bird, C.E., Conrad, P., Fremont, A.M. (eds.) Handbook of Medical Sociology, pp. 284–297. Pearson Education Limited, Harlow (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Roberti di Sarsina, P., Iseppato, I.: Looking for a Person-Centered Medicine: Non Conventional Medicine in the Conventional European and Italian Setting. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 1–8 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Krippendorff, K.: Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Sage, Thousand Oaks (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Holzinger, A.: Usability Engineering for Software Developers. Communications of the ACM 48(1), 71–74 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Holzinger, A., et al.: The effect of previous exposure to technology on acceptance and its importance in usability and accessibility engineering. Universal Access in the Information Society 10(3), 245–260 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Eysenbach, G., Koehler, C.: How do consumers search for and appraise health information on the world wide web? Qualitative study using focus groups, usability tests, and in-depth interviews. BMJ 324(7337), 573–577 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Anderson, K.A., et al.: A Systematic Evaluation of Online Resources for Dementia Caregivers. Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet 13, 1–13 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Lorence, D., Abraham, J.: A study of undue pain and surfing: using hierarchical criteria to assess website quality. Health Informatics Journal 14, 155–173 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Kim, T.R., Deearing, M.J., Maxfield, A.: Published criteria for evaluating health related web sites: Review. British Medical Journal 318, 647–649 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. O’Grady, L., et al.: Measuring the Impact of a Moving Target: Towards a Dynamic Framework for Evaluating Collaborative Adaptive Interactive Technologies. Journal of Medical Internet Research 11, 9 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Charnock, D., et al.: DISCERN: an instrument for judging the quality of written consumer health information on treatment choices. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 53(2), 105–111 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Goldschmidt, P.G.: A Report on the Evaluation of Criteria Sets for Assessing Health Web Sites [Internet]. Health Improvement Institute and Consumer Reports WebWatch (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Carletta, J.: Assessing agreement on classification tasks: the kappa statistic. Computational Linguistics 22, 249–254 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Krippendorff, K.: Reliability in Content Analysis. Some Common Misconceptions and Recommendations. Human Communication Research (3), 411–433 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Okoli, C., Pawlowski, S.D.: The Delphi method as a research tool: an example, design considerations and applications. Information & Management 42(1), 15–29 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Valadares Tavares, L.: A model to support the search for consensus with conflicting rankings: Multitrident. International Transactions in Operational Research 11(1), 107–115 (2004)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  45. Fricker, R.D., Schonlau, M.: Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Research Surveys: Evidence from the Literature. Field Methods 14(4), 347–367 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Viale Sarca 336, 20126, Milano, Italy

    Federico Cabitza

Authors
  1. Federico Cabitza
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Federico Cabitza .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Milano Bicocca, Dipartimento di Informatica, Universita' degli Studi di, Edificio U14, Viale Sarca 336, Milano, 20126, Italy

    Gabriella Pasi

  2. CNR IDPA Inst. f. Environmental, Process Dynamics, Italian National Research Council, Via Pasubio 5, Dalmine, 24044, Italy

    Gloria Bordogna

  3. , School of Electrical and Information, University of South Australia, Adelaide, 5095, South Australia, Australia

    Lakhmi C. Jain

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer- Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Cabitza, F. (2013). An Information Reliability Index as a Simple Consumer-Oriented Indication of Quality of Medical Web Sites. In: Pasi, G., Bordogna, G., Jain, L. (eds) Quality Issues in the Management of Web Information. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol 50. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37688-7_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37688-7_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37687-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-37688-7

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation