Evaluating the Quality of Malaria-Related Health Information in the Nigerian Internet Context

Abstract

Background: Patients and public are increasingly relying on Internet forhealth information. Health care providers are using internet for disseminationof health information. However, health information available on internet is notwell regulated, and information qualityvaries greatly. Malaria is the leading cause of deathand disease in many developing countries and has serious health burden aroundthe world. The Internet could become a major resource for malaria education andinformation in Africa. This may potentially save millions of lives. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the quality of malaria healthand treatment information available on the internet provided by the Nigerian context. Methods: Two key terms(malaria & treatment) were entered into three search engines: Google,Yahoo! and Bing. In order to retrieve articles as if the searches wereconducted in Nigeria, the Local Area Network (LAN) settings were changed to a Nigerianproxy server, with a local Internet Protocol address. Three raters evaluatedthe quality of information using the DISCERN [9] instrument criteria. Kendall’s concordancecoefficient (W) was calculated todetermine the level of agreement among the three raters. Results: Thirty-eight websites evaluated, and the highest inter-rateraverage score was attributed to the Patient.co.uk website, followed byWikipedia web site and Malaria Site. The “Home Remedies for You” website receivedthe lowest score. Most evaluated websites were .com domains. The highestaverage score was given to .co.uk domains while .int had the lowest score. Conclusions: Improving the quality of malaria-related health information could leadto empowering communities, engagingand assisting them to strengthen their health and social information sharingand support.