Assessing the Quality and Readability of COVID-19 Health Information : A Cross-sectional Analysis

Main Article Content

MAJED Abdullah Ali Al Qashanin, Ibrahim Ahmad Ilnumays, Hamis Nasser Ghnamm Al sharif , ALYAMI, DHAFER SALEH Nasser, Hamad hussain mohammed al salaiman, ALYAMI, SAIDAN MOHAMMED B

Keywords

COVID-19; COVID-19 pandemic; health literacy; readability; QUEST; online health information; cross-sectional; trend; internet; transmission; symptom; quality;

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented surge in online information concerning disease transmission and symptoms.
Objective: This study aims to systematically evaluate the quality and readability of articles resulting from commonly searched COVID-19 terms on Google .


Methods: Using Google Trends, we identified the 25 most frequently searched health-related phrases. The first 30 search results for each term were collected, and articles were assessed using the Quality Evaluation Scoring Tool (QUEST). Three raters evaluated each article on criteria including authorship, attribution, conflict of interest, currency, complementarity, and tone. Additionally, a readability analysis was conducted.

Abstract 59 | PDF Downloads 17

References

1. Hydroxychloroquine has about 90 percent chance of helping COVID-19 patients. Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. URL:
https://aapsonline.org/hcq-90-percent-chance/ [accessed 2020-09-06]
2. Boulware DR, Pullen MF, Bangdiwala AS, Pastick KA, Lofgren SM, Okafor EC, et al. A randomized trial of hydroxychloroquine as postexposure
prophylaxis for Covid-19. N Engl J Med 2020 Aug 06;383(6):517-525 [FREEFull text] [doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2016638] [Medline: 32492293]
3. Skipper CP, Pastick KA, Engen NW, Bangdiwala AS, Abassi M, Lofgren SM,et al. Hydroxychloroquine in nonhospitalized adults with early COVID-19: a randomized trial. Ann Intern Med 2020 Oct 20;173(8):623-631 [FREE Full text] [doi: 10.7326/M20-4207] [Medline: 32673060]
4. Ruiz JB, Bell RA. Understanding vaccination resistance: vaccine search term selection bias and the valence of retrieved information. Vaccine 2014 Oct 07;32(44):5776-5780. [doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.08.042] [Medline: 25176640]

Article Sidebar

PDF
Published
Feb 28, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.53555/jptcp.v30i2.4968

Article Details

How to Cite
MAJED Abdullah Ali Al Qashanin, Ibrahim Ahmad Ilnumays, Hamis Nasser Ghnamm Al sharif , ALYAMI, DHAFER SALEH Nasser, Hamad hussain mohammed al salaiman, ALYAMI, SAIDAN MOHAMMED B. (2023). Assessing the Quality and Readability of COVID-19 Health Information : A Cross-sectional Analysis. Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology, 30(2), 550-566. https://doi.org/10.53555/jptcp.v30i2.4968
Issue
Vol. 30 No. 2 (2023): JPTCP
Section
Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

All articles published in JPTCP  are licensed under Copyright Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

MAJED Abdullah Ali Al Qashanin, Ibrahim Ahmad Ilnumays, Hamis Nasser Ghnamm Al sharif , ALYAMI, DHAFER SALEH Nasser, Hamad hussain mohammed al salaiman, ALYAMI, SAIDAN MOHAMMED B. (2023). Assessing the Quality and Readability of COVID-19 Health Information : A Cross-sectional Analysis. Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology, 30(2), 550-566. https://doi.org/10.53555/jptcp.v30i2.4968