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Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study

BACKGROUND: The internet is a large source of health information and has the capacity to influence its users. However, the information found on the internet often lacks scientific rigor, as anyone may upload content. This factor is a cause of great concern to scientific societies, governments, and u...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hernández-García, Ignacio, Giménez-Júlvez, Teresa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7117090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32217507
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18717
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author Hernández-García, Ignacio
Giménez-Júlvez, Teresa
author_facet Hernández-García, Ignacio
Giménez-Júlvez, Teresa
author_sort Hernández-García, Ignacio
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The internet is a large source of health information and has the capacity to influence its users. However, the information found on the internet often lacks scientific rigor, as anyone may upload content. This factor is a cause of great concern to scientific societies, governments, and users. OBJECTIVE: The objective of our study was to investigate the information about the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the internet. METHODS: On February 29, 2020, we performed a Google search with the terms “Prevention coronavirus,” “Prevention COVID-19,” “Prevención coronavirus,” and “Prevención COVID-19”. A univariate analysis was performed to study the association between the type of authorship, country of publication, and recommendations to avoid COVID-19 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). RESULTS: In total, 80 weblinks were reviewed. Most of them were produced in the United States and Spain (n=58, 73%) by digital media sources and official public health organizations (n=60, 75%). The most mentioned WHO preventive measure was “wash your hands frequently” (n=65, 81%). A less frequent recommendation was to “stay home if you feel unwell” (n=26, 33%). The analysis by type of author (official public health organizations versus digital media) revealed significant differences regarding the recommendation to wear a mask when you are healthy only if caring for a person with suspected COVID-19 (odds ratio [OR] 4.39). According to the country of publication (Spain versus the United States), significant differences were detected regarding some recommendations such as “wash your hands frequently” (OR 9.82), “cover your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze” (OR 4.59), or “stay home if you feel unwell” (OR 0.31). CONCLUSIONS: It is necessary to urge and promote the use of the websites of official public health organizations when seeking information on COVID-19 preventive measures on the internet. In this way, users will be able to obtain high-quality information more frequently, and such websites may improve their accessibility and positioning, given that search engines justify the positioning of links obtained in a search based on the frequency of access to them.
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spelling pubmed-71170902020-04-09 Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study Hernández-García, Ignacio Giménez-Júlvez, Teresa JMIR Public Health Surveill Original Paper BACKGROUND: The internet is a large source of health information and has the capacity to influence its users. However, the information found on the internet often lacks scientific rigor, as anyone may upload content. This factor is a cause of great concern to scientific societies, governments, and users. OBJECTIVE: The objective of our study was to investigate the information about the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the internet. METHODS: On February 29, 2020, we performed a Google search with the terms “Prevention coronavirus,” “Prevention COVID-19,” “Prevención coronavirus,” and “Prevención COVID-19”. A univariate analysis was performed to study the association between the type of authorship, country of publication, and recommendations to avoid COVID-19 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). RESULTS: In total, 80 weblinks were reviewed. Most of them were produced in the United States and Spain (n=58, 73%) by digital media sources and official public health organizations (n=60, 75%). The most mentioned WHO preventive measure was “wash your hands frequently” (n=65, 81%). A less frequent recommendation was to “stay home if you feel unwell” (n=26, 33%). The analysis by type of author (official public health organizations versus digital media) revealed significant differences regarding the recommendation to wear a mask when you are healthy only if caring for a person with suspected COVID-19 (odds ratio [OR] 4.39). According to the country of publication (Spain versus the United States), significant differences were detected regarding some recommendations such as “wash your hands frequently” (OR 9.82), “cover your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze” (OR 4.59), or “stay home if you feel unwell” (OR 0.31). CONCLUSIONS: It is necessary to urge and promote the use of the websites of official public health organizations when seeking information on COVID-19 preventive measures on the internet. In this way, users will be able to obtain high-quality information more frequently, and such websites may improve their accessibility and positioning, given that search engines justify the positioning of links obtained in a search based on the frequency of access to them. JMIR Publications 2020-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7117090/ /pubmed/32217507 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18717 Text en ©Ignacio Hernández-García, Teresa Giménez-Júlvez. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 01.04.2020. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://publichealth.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Hernández-García, Ignacio
Giménez-Júlvez, Teresa
Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study
title Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study
title_full Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study
title_fullStr Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study
title_full_unstemmed Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study
title_short Assessment of Health Information About COVID-19 Prevention on the Internet: Infodemiological Study
title_sort assessment of health information about covid-19 prevention on the internet: infodemiological study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7117090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32217507
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/18717
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