Orofacial granulomatosis and dietary interventions: health information on the internet

Quality and accuracy of online nutrition-related information: a systematic review of content analysis studies

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review aimed to summarise the level of quality and accuracy of nutrition-related information on websites and social media and determine if quality and accuracy varied between websites and social media or publishers of information.

DESIGN

This systematic review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021224277). CINAHL, MEDLINE, Embase, Global Health and Academic Search Complete were systematically searched on 15 January 2021 to identify content analysis studies, published in English after 1989, that evaluated the quality and/or accuracy of nutrition-related information published on websites or social media. A coding framework was used to classify studies' findings about information quality and/or accuracy as poor, good, moderate or varied. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Quality Criteria Checklist was used to assess the risk of bias.

SETTING

N/A.

PARTICIPANTS

N/A.

RESULTS

From 10 482 articles retrieved, sixty-four were included. Most studies evaluated information from websites (n 53, 82·8 %). Similar numbers of studies assessed quality (n 41, 64·1 %) and accuracy (n 47, 73·4 %). Almost half of the studies reported that quality (n 20, 48·8 %) or accuracy (n 23, 48·9 %) was low. Quality and accuracy of information were similar on social media and websites, however, varied between information publishers. High risk of bias in sample selection and quality or accuracy evaluations was a common limitation.

CONCLUSION

Online nutrition-related information is often inaccurate and of low quality. Consumers seeking information online are at risk of being misinformed. More action is needed to improve the public's eHealth and media literacy and the reliability of online nutrition-related information.

Socio-demographic characteristics affect health information seeking on the Internet in Turkey

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this paper was to determine the effects of certain socio-demographic characteristics of Turkish individuals who seek health information on the Internet.

METHODS

This study was granted permission to use data obtained by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TSI) in 2018 under their Household Information Technology Use (HITU) study. The original sample for this research comprised 19,389 participants.

RESULTS

Age, gender, educational level, place of residence and frequency of Internet use were all found to impact the participants' health information seeking behaviour on the Internet. Health information was sought more frequently by women than men, by younger than older people and by those with higher levels of education. Also, health information searches were conducted more often in developed regions than in less-developed regions. In addition, it was also found that the habit of seeking health information was more common among those who use the Internet more frequently.

CONCLUSION

Several socio-demographic characteristics of individuals affect their health information seeking behaviour on the Internet. All individuals should be granted equivalent access to reliable health information by taking sociodemographic characteristics and discrepancies into consideration.