Observational studyBMC medical informatics and decision making2026
Quality evaluation of online platforms information for retail of prescription medicines in China: an observational study of the case of paroxetine.
Observational study in BMC medical informatics and decision making, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Managing uncertainty in antibiotic decisions: factors influencing antibiotic use among chinese parents of children in a multi-source information environment.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis study aimed to generate evidence to help improve the quality of information provided by Chinese online platforms for retail of prescription medicines, as a baseline for enhancing the supervision by the regulatory authorities of internet retail of prescription medicines to offer comprehensive, accurate and reliable information to consumers.
methodsThis is an observational study to investigate the quality of the information provided by two key types of online platforms in China that sell paroxetine online, a common mental health medication. The authors utilized the DISCERN with the Likert 5 scale, a validated instrument comprising three domains and 16 items to assess the comprehensiveness, accuracy and reliability of information provided by a total of 34 Chinese online platforms. We firstly examined whether these online platforms have been diligent in their duty to provide appropriate retail service-related information (e.g. delivery, payment, return policies) for prescription medications. We also evaluated the quality of the medication information associated with treatment plans for specific prescriptions provided by the online platforms. Three trained master medical students independently conducted the evaluation. By securing the consistency of the scoring results among different evaluators and the reliability of the evaluation, we adopted the mean score of the three evaluators for each item to perform further analysis at the item and domain levels, and between two types of online platforms.
resultsAmong the 34 online platforms, 2 were evaluated as providing excellent information for retail of paroxetine (1/34, 5.88%), 6 were good (6/34, 17.65%), 25 were fair (25/34, 73.53%), and 1 was poor (1/34, 2.94%). The key identified flaws of the online platforms for providing appropriate information for retail of paroxetine included (1) inadequate provision of medication information, (2) absence of prescription validation and authentication, and (3) lack of professional pharmacy services such as mandatory pharmacist consultations or patient-specific drug counselling.
conclusionsConsumers face challenges in obtaining comprehensive, accurate and reliable information from the online platforms for common mental health prescription medications. The quality of information provided by the online platforms for retail of prescription medicines is generally suboptimal, and the compliance of prescription validation and authentication is problematic. These highlight the need for strengthening the supervision of the online platforms with novel approaches along with their rapid developments, and ensuring appropriate online information provided to consumers.
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