METHODS: The survey-based, cross-sectional study was conducted from January to July 2018 in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan, and comprised graduates of either gender aged at least 35 years with access to internet and means of use, and with no current diagnosed medical condition. The self-reporting Cyberchondria Severity Scale was used data-collection along with a demographic sheet. SPSS 21 was used for data analysis.
RESULTS: Of the 150 subjects, 90(60%) were men and 60(40%) were women. A total of 40(26.6%) subjects had low level of cyberchondria, while 35(23.3%) experienced a higher level of it. Mean scores of men on total CSS were slightly higher than those of women (p>0.05). Men also scored higher on compulsion, distress, excessiveness and reassurance subsclaes (p>0.05 each), whereas women scored slightly higherthan men on 'mistrust of medical profession' subscale (p>0.05). No significant gender differences werefound on cyberchondria and its subscales (p>0.05 each).
CONCLUSIONS: Doctors / health professionals may benefit from the findings by focussing on their patients who use internet as a major source of medical information.
METHODS: In this infodemiological study, the Google, Yahoo!, and Bing search engines were searched using specific Arabic terms on periodontal disease. The first 100 consecutive websites from each engine were obtained. The eligible websites were categorized as commercial, health/professional, journalism, and other. The following tools were applied to assess the quality of the information on the included websites: the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks, and the DISCERN tool. The readability was assessed using an online readability tool.
RESULTS: Of the 300 websites, 89 were eligible for quality and readability analyses. Only two websites (2.3%) were HONcode certified. Based on the DISCERN tool, 43 (48.3%) websites had low scores. The mean score of the JAMA benchmarks was 1.6 ± 1.0, but only 3 (3.4%) websites achieved "yes" responses for all four JAMA criteria. Based on the DISCERN tool, health/professional websites revealed the highest quality of information compared to other website categories. Most of the health/professional websites revealed moderate-quality information, while 55% of the commercial websites, 66% of journalism websites, and 43% of other websites showed poor quality information. Regarding readability, most of the analyzed websites presented simple and readable written content.
CONCLUSIONS: Aside from readable content, Arabic health information on the analyzed websites on periodontal disease is below the required level of quality.
METHODS: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study that was conducted to evaluate perception and experience of pharmacists with the use of Internet-based medication information by their patients. During the study period, 200 pharmacists were approached to participate in the study using a paper-based survey to assess their perceptions and current experience with the use of Internet-based medication information by their patients. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean/standard deviation for continuous variables, and frequency/percentages for qualitative variables). Also, simple linear regression was utilized to screen factors affecting pharmacists' perception scores of the use of Internet-based medication information.
RESULTS: Among 161 recruited pharmacists, the majority (n = 129, 80.1%) reported receiving inquiries from patients about Internet-based medication information within the last year. Among them, only 22.6% (n = 29) of pharmacists believed that Internet-based medication information is somewhat or very accurate. Unfortunately, only 24.2% (n = 31) of them stated that they always had enough time for their patient to discuss their Internet-based medication information. Regarding pharmacists' perception of the use of Internet-based medication information by their patients, more than half of the pharmacists (>50%) believe that Internet-based medication information could increase the patient's role in taking responsibility. On the other hand, 54.7% (n = 88) of the pharmacists believed that Internet-based medication information would contribute to rising the healthcare cost by obtaining unnecessary medications by patients. Finally, pharmacists' educational level was found to significantly affect their perception scores toward patient use of Internet-based medication information where those with higher educational level showed lower perception score (r = -0.200, P-value = 0.011).
CONCLUSION: Although pharmacists felt that usage of Internet-based data by patients is beneficial, they also have believed that it has a negative impact in terms of rising the healthcare cost, and it promotes unnecessary fear or concern about medications. We suggest that pharmacists be trained on principles of critical appraisal to become professional in retrieval information on the Internet that might improve their delivery of healthcare information and their recommendations to patients.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and Bing) were searched. The first 20 consecutive websites from each engine were obtained and checked for eligibility. For the quality of the websites, the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode), the DISCERN tool, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Benchmarks, and Google PageRank were used for the assessment of the included websites. For readability, an online web tool was used, including well-known analyzing indices [Flesch Kincaid grade level (FKGL), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE)]. The acceptable readability level was set to be ≥80.0 for the FRE and <7 for the FKGL and SMOG. The data were presented in frequencies and percentages.
RESULTS: Out of the 60 screened websites, 14 websites were eligible for analysis. There was only one (7.1%) website that had the HONcode seal. The mean score of all websites based on the DISCERN tool was 29.6 ± 12.1, with no website achieved the high score (≥65). Only one (7.1%) website scored >5 based on Google PageRank. Regarding JAMA benchmarks, all websites achieved a mean score of 2.57 ± 1.1. The mean grade level based on the FKGL was 8.4 ± 6.3. All websites had a score of <7 according to the SMOG index. The mean score of the readability ease index was 90.5 ± 16.4.
CONCLUSION: Most of the dental health information on denture hygiene available on the Arabic websites did not have the required level of quality, regardless of being readable and comprehensible by most of the general people.
CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Directing the patients to the appropriate websites related to their cases is the responsibility of the dentists.
Methods: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted via a web-based survey in May 2020. All pharmacy students enrolled at Unaizah College of Pharmacy, Qassim University, were invited to take part in the study.
Results: A total of 232 out of 460 students took part in the study, giving a response rate of 50.43%. The mean total knowledge score was 9.87 ± 2.04 (maximum attainable score, 12). The majority of the participants (n=163; 70.3%) believed COVID-19 is a health threat to their community in the early months of the pandemic. Moreover, the majority (93%) also believed that the lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic was necessary to contain the pandemic. Encouragingly, 86.6% reported that they did not go to any crowded places during the pandemic with more female students avoiding crowded places compared to male students (91.6% versus 78.7%, respectively, P = 0.005). The majority (91%) also reported that they were following the strategies recommended by the authorities to prevent the spread of the virus. Encouragingly, 54.3% reported that the pandemic either had no effect or just a limited effect on their studies. However, 38.5% reported that they always felt or frequently felt nervous or anxious during the pandemic.
Conclusion: The study showed that pharmacy students had good knowledge as well as positive attitudes and good practices towards COVID-19 and the preventive measures. However, during the early months, the pandemic did have a negative psychological impact on a number of students. Consequently, proactive psychological and social support services to the students should be considered during the current and future pandemics. In addition, it is important to consider and proactively address key issues that could cause stress and anxiety among students when shifting to distance learning and assessments.