Gauging the reliability of online health information in the Turkish context

Abstract

It is hard to gauge the reliability of health information that is provided on the internet as there are plethora of medical firms and other organizations promoting their massive marketing campaigns to sell their products and services. However, an initiative; Health On the Net (HON) foundation claims that it is possible to observe the credibility and trustworthiness of health information on the websites internationally by following HON-code principles. Keeping with the principles set by the HON foundation, we analyzed the credibility of Turkish health websites and portals related to health information seeking behavior from the point of view information seeker’s benefit. We selected and analyzed 56 websites within three categories which are “psychology”, “aesthetics and beauty” and “motherhood, baby and children”. We then evaluated their credibility of health information as according HON principles. We found out that most of the selected websites do conform to the basic principles set by the HON foundation, in Turkey. However, this information of conformance to the standards has not been listed explicitly, as opposed to the health portals in the US. Furthermore, we observed that accessibility of health information for patients and other information seekers is another topic that is needed to be dealt with separately.