COVID-19 pandemic information on Brazilian websites: Credibility, coverage, and agreement with World Health Organization. Quality of COVID-19 online information in Brazil

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess the credibility and the quality content of COVID-19 pandemic information on Brazilian websites. METHODS: We performed Google searches and screened the first 45 websites. The websites were categorized as academic, commercial, government, hospital, media, nongovernmental organizations, and professionals. The credibility was assessed by JAMA benchmark criteria and HONCODE. A checklist with WHO information about COVID-19 was developed to assess the quality content. For each website, the level of agreement with WHO information was categorized into “total,” “partial,” or “disagreement”. RESULTS: A total of 20 websites were analyzed. None of the websites had HONCODE certification. Six websites (30%) met none of the four JAMA criteria and only one website (5%) fulfilled all the four criteria. Only 11 out of 20 websites showed overall coverage >50% for the checklist. Overall, 70% (14/20) of the websites had at least 50% total agreement with WHO items. The government websites presented more disagreement with the WHO items than media websites in the overall quality content analysis. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 information on Brazilian websites have a moderate-to-low credibility and quality, particularly on the government websites.