ReviewThe Australasian medical journal2014
Quality of patient health information on the Internet: reviewing a complex and evolving landscape.
Review in The Australasian medical journal, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04301206 (Videos and Simple Text to Empower Parents to Handle Their Sick Children), which is not on this map. Cited by 98 papers, 5 of them syntheses 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.
Videos and Simple Text to Empower Parents to Handle Their Sick Children
Who cites it
98 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Relation Between eHealth Literacy and Online Health Information-Seeking Behavior: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Pooled it
- Publicly Available, Interactive Web-Based Tools to Support Advance Care Planning: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Pooled it
- Educational interventions to improve people's understanding of key concepts in assessing the effects of health interventions: a systematic review.Systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Social Media and HIV: A Systematic Review of Uses of Social Media in HIV Communication.Journal of medical Internet research · 2015Pooled it
- Medical wikis dedicated to clinical practice: a systematic review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2015Pooled it
- Teaching Australian high school students to think critically about health claims: a cluster randomized trial.Health education research · 2023Trial
- Assessment of Technology Use and Technology Preferences for HIV Prevention Among Hispanic Women.Hispanic health care international : the official journal of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses · 2018Trial
- American, British, and Italian Online Information on the Health Risks Associated With Eating Meat: Cross-Sectional Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Decoding the Web for Quality Insights on Mouthwash Information in Brazilian Websites.International journal of dental hygiene · 2026Article
- Comprehensive evaluation of Medtronic's Butterfly platform, a new audiovisual information material for patient education and shared decision-making in surgical thyroid disease.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2026Article
- An infodemiological analysis of arabic online educational content on low back pain: Insights into quality and reliability.Journal of public health research · 2026Article
- Quality and readability of Turkish online patient information websites on benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- The quality and scope of health information on online drug platforms: a topic modelling and expert evaluation study of a Polish-language forum.Harm reduction journal · 2026Article
- Article
- Assessing the readability and quality of online written information on epistaxis.Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England · 2025Article
- Evaluating the quality of online resources for patient education on robotic esophagectomy.Journal of robotic surgery · 2025Article
- Article
- Evaluating AI-based breastfeeding chatbots: quality, readability, and reliability analysis.PloS one · 2025Article
- Arabic web-based educational resources on iron deficiency anemia: an infodemiological study.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Article
38 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe popularity of the Internet has enabled unprecedented access to health information. As a largely unregulated source, there is potential for inconsistency in the quality of information that reaches the patient.
aimsTo review the literature relating to the quality indicators of health information for patients on the Internet.
methodA search of English language literature was conducted using PubMed, Google Scholar and EMBASE databases.
resultsMany articles have been published which assess the quality of information relating to specific medical conditions. Indicators of quality have been defined in an attempt to predict higher quality health information on the Internet. Quality evaluation tools are scoring systems based on indicators of quality. Established tools such as the HONcode may help patients navigate to more reliable information. Google and Wikipedia are important emerging sources of patient health information.
conclusionThe Internet is crucial for modern dissemination of health information, but it is clear that quality varies significantly between sources. Quality indicators for web-information have been developed but there is no agreed standard yet. We envisage that reliable rating tools, effective search engine ranking and progress in crowd-edited websites will enhance patient access to health information on the Internet.
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.