Research Of Quality Evaluation Model Of Internet Consumer Health Information

Background: The rapid growth of Internet technology makes it more convenient to acquire health information. But as the publication of Internet information is different from that of traditional media, the quality of information is difficult to guarantee. If consumers lack of medical knowledge are not guided as how to acquire accurate information, it is possible that they will get disadvantageous or even adverse information, which in turn will cause negative impact on health. Therefore, relative experts give more and more attention to the quality of Internet consumer health information and have done great research on the evaluation of quality. But most of them have no clear theory guide and focus almost exclusively on structural characteristics.Objective: An objective, systematic model was developed to evaluate Internet health information based on scientific theory. It involved the evaluation of information itself. And Internet diabetes information was evaluated according to the model, so that consumers would be provided with guide to the utility of Internet health information.Methods: Based on Donabedian's quality-of-care measurement framework, a model was developed to evaluate Internet consumer health information. Then a tool was developed to evaluate diabetes consumer health information websites according to the model. Evaluation of diabetes websites was also implemented. Finally, analysis and evaluation of results was carried out.Results: 1. The quality evaluation model included structural measures and performance measures. Structural characteristics included explanation of methods, validity of methods, and currency of information. Performance measures included comprehensiveness of information, accuracy of information, and consumer satisfaction. The items of structural measures and consumer satisfaction had been determined. There were 9 items and 6 respectively. 2. There were 30 items of comprehensiveness and 5 of accuracy in the diabetes consumer health information websites evaluation tool. The total number of the items was 50. The tool includes the definition of items and operation regulation besides items. 3. In all, 68 websites were evaluated. The total scores of all the websites followed normal distribution (12%~87%). The comprehensiveness measures of all the websites got the best result. The endorsement of individual item varied substantially. The correlation between structural and performance measures was moderate. 4. There was good agreement between two raters(r=0.80).Conclusions: The quality of diabetes consumer health information websites in our country varies widely. It is necessary to evaluate these websites. The construction of consumer health information websites is irregular. Structural items reflect the quality of websites to some degree.