ReviewBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2002
Examination of instruments used to rate quality of health information on the internet: chronicle of a voyage with an unclear destination.
Review in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 87 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Study of the Quality of Self-Diagnosis by Headache Patients Getting Tailored Internet Information
Quality of Self-Diagnosis by Headache Patients Getting Tailored Internet Information - Part 2
Who cites it
87 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Tools for Evaluating the Content, Efficacy, and Usability of Mobile Health Apps According to the Consensus-Based Standards for the Selection of Health Measurement Instruments: Systematic Review.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2021Pooled it
- Quality of drug information on the World Wide Web and strategies to improve pages with poor information quality. An intervention study on pages about sildenafil.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2004Trial
- Development of a Validated Lay Checklist (Info Without Side Effects) for Assessing Health Information on Websites: Mixed Methods Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- A centralized decision-making support consultation response for fertility preservation in breast cancer patients: benchmark performance of generative large language models in terms of reliability and readability.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Evaluation of the measurement properties of online health information quality assessment tools: A systematic review.International journal of nursing sciences · 2025Review
- Evaluating the effectiveness and limitations of online health information tools in assessing the quality of medication-related content.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Digital Scientific Platform for Independent Content in Neurology: Rigorous Quality Guideline Development and Implementation.Interactive journal of medical research · 2022Article
- Treatment for Constipation-An Online Search. Readability and Quality of Online Patient Resources.Journal of patient experience · 2022Article
- A Tool to Assess the Trustworthiness of Evidence-Based Point-of-Care Information for Health Care Professionals (CAPOCI): Design and Validation Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Public Health in the Information Age: Recognizing the Infosphere as a Social Determinant of Health.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Article
- From a Digital Bottle: A Message to Ourselves in 2039.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- The Reliability and Validity of the Telephone-Based and Online Polish eHealth Literacy Scale Based on Two Nationally Representative Samples.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Analyzing and Visualizing Knowledge Structures of Health Informatics from 1974 to 2018: A Bibliometric and Social Network Analysis.Healthcare informatics research · 2019Review
- A comprehensive scoping review to identify standards for the development of health information resources on the internet.PloS one · 2019Article
- The QUEST for quality online health information: validation of a short quantitative tool.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2018Article
- A Tool That Assesses the Evidence, Transparency, and Usability of Online Health Information: Development and Reliability Assessment.JMIR aging · 2018Article
- Personal Health Information Recommender: implementing a tool for the empowerment of cancer patients.Ecancermedicalscience · 2018Article
- Toward automated assessment of health Web page quality using the DISCERN instrument.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2017Article
- Fifteen-year trend in information on the World Wide Web for patients with rheumatoid arthritis: evolving, but opportunities for improvement remain.Rheumatology international · 2016Article
- Evaluation of Web-Based Consumer Medication Information: Content and Usability of 4 Australian Websites.Interactive journal of medical research · 2016Article
27 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThis study updates work published in 1998, which found that of 47 rating instruments appearing on websites offering health information, 14 described how they were developed, five provided instructions for use, and none reported the interobserver reliability and construct validity of the measurements.
designAll rating instrument sites noted in the original study were visited to ascertain whether they were still operating. New rating instruments were identified by duplicating and enhancing the comprehensive search of the internet and the medical and information science literature used in the previous study. Eligible instruments were evaluated as in the original study.
results98 instruments used to assess the quality of websites in the past five years were identified. Many of the rating instruments identified in the original study were no longer available. Of 51 newly identified rating instruments, only five provided some information by which they could be evaluated. As with the six sites identified in the original study that remained available, none of these five instruments seemed to have been validated.
conclusionsMany incompletely developed rating instruments continue to appear on websites providing health information, even when the organisations that gave rise to those instruments no longer exist. Many researchers, organisations, and website developers are exploring alternative ways of helping people to find and use high quality information available on the internet. Whether they are needed or sustainable and whether they make a difference remain to be shown.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.