Web versus press with a high circulation: an Italian case study.
OBJECTIVE
the quality of health-related information available for general public on the web has been widely debated, often expressing concern, in the last few years, but also other mass media supply medical contents for health consumer.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the quality of information available by the Italian people through Internet in comparison with the one published on the press with a high circulation. A general interest topic such as over-weight and obesity has been identified as a convenient field for the comparison.


METHODS
A sample of web sites and articles have been collected--excluding the promotional ones- in order to compare their completeness and correctness. National guidelines were the golden standard. For the web sites, the availability of indications to let the user know the reliability of the site--we will refer to these as "transparency"--has been evaluated through 9 parameters.


RESULTS
45 informative sites and 35 articles have been found: the Italian population has a good chance of getting information. Web sites are much more complete than articles. Correctness of both is quite good. Transparency of web sites leaves much to desire, independently from the quality of the content.


CONCLUSIONS
There is probably an excessive confidence about the transparency and caution of articles in dealing with health-related topics.


CONCLUSIONS
The web publishers must necessarily be educated to apply the existing good practice rules, but in the meantime also the press with a high circulation, that is read by a high percentage of people, has to improve its quality in order to co-operate in supplying adequate information. In general, from the traditional exceptionalist approach for medical information on the internet, a definition of media quality standard could be derived.
Mazzoleni
M Cristina
MC
Medical Informatics Unit, Fondazione S. Maugeri IRCCS, Pavia, Italy. cmazzoleni@fsm.it
Marello
Annalisa
A
Giorgi
Ines
I
Marchi
Antonietta
A
D003258:Consumer Behavior; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services / Q000592:standards*; D020407:Internet / Q000592:standards*; D007558:Italy; D008402:Mass Media / Q000592:standards*; D009524:Newspapers as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D009765:Obesity; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D011786:Quality Control; D015203:Reproducibility of Results