Health websites in Italy: use, classification and international policy

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss international policy in relation to the use of health websites and we describe the results obtained from application of a search engine to the recognition and classification of health websites in Italy. We then compare the results with health websites in other countries. Effective use of technology has led to medical advances that have not only extended life expectancy, but also fuelled an increasingly well-informed public to expect more and more from today's healthcare providers. As a consequence of the Web's rapid, chaotic growth, the resulting network of information lacks organization and structure and the quest for a method of quickly finding relevant and reliable information is spawning the growth of Internet portal sites. The US and the European Union and now Italy, have established the importance of rules to check the quality of health sites both for the non-professional users (citizens), mainly for privacy and security (for example, of medical records); and for health operators (physicians and others), where the most important thing is to evaluate the quality of content. In June 2001, the search engine used here found 2627 Italian health sites, of which only 46 exhibited the HON Code, and they can be classified into: 1% personal medical sites, 17% health portals, 18%, metasites, 27% documental sites and 37% information sites for health operators and/or for citizens.

eHealth Search Patterns: A Comparison of Private and Public Health Care Markets Using Online Panel Data

“…This new eHealth taxonomy is broader in scope and more comprehensive than similar frameworks [4,19]. Although the classification scheme proposed by Di Giacomo et al [19] has some similarities to our model, it did not identify the health, lifestyle, and social media categories. The proposed taxonomy has therefore been derived in a mainly deductive manner and then applied empirically to a large sample of websites.…”

“…Although there have been some efforts to develop classifications [4,19], there was no attempt to evaluate the models and populate them with a large-scale realistic dataset and there is no agreed classification or taxonomy of health-related websites.…”

“…This is exacerbated if the sample is of a specific nature; such as patients having a particular condition or being members of a professional group [3,6]. In addition, such samples are often from a single country [19,21]. Surveys provide potentially much larger samples and better generalizability, but there are also problems, notably, the difficulty of balancing the length and complexity of the survey with the practicalities of users completing it in a comprehensive and accurate manner [22].…”

Quality of cystic fibrosis information on Italian Websites

“…The topics covered by all the sites were physiotherapy, pancreatic enzymes and treatment of respiratory tract infections. All 11 sites provided information on diagnosis, although one provided only 12 C. Pandolfini et al Cystic fibrosis online 13 partial information concerning the options for diagnosing CF (it mentioned the sweat test, but not neonatal screening).…”

“…All have limitations, however, and can only partially guarantee content quality or probable quality level, even if the use of specific guidelines for health related websites, and consequently their certification, could be useful [12].…”