title: Using the Alzheimer's Association web site to improve knowledge of Alzheimer's disease in health care providers.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether an informative Web site is effective at producing higher scores for an individual's knowledge of Alzheimer's disease (AD) relative to those who do not visit a Web site.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 552 participants completed the study on Amazon's Mechanical Turk; half were randomly assigned to visit alz.org, while a control group did not. Both groups were given the AD Knowledge Scale (ADKS) to assess their knowledge of AD.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants who visited alz.org scored significantly higher on the ADKS than those in the control group. Participants who were health care workers demonstrated higher scores than others in the experimental condition. Findings indicate that the Alzheimer's Association Web site is effective at producing higher scores for AD knowledge relative to no Web site at all and that it is especially helpful for health care workers compared to those who are not health care workers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Deborah A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Lowe
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Hannah E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Shine
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA.
authors.forename: Brian D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA balsis@tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Balsis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011897:Random Allocation; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: ADKS; Alzheimer’s Association; Alzheimer’s Disease Knowledge Scale; Alzheimer’s disease; dementia