Quality of health information issues

As indicated above, there is a wealth of medical information available via the Internet. This can be broadly divided into three categoris:

i) Textbook style information, produced by medical schools and other academic institutions

ii) Abstracts of peer-reviewed articles, or the whole article in biomedical journals

iii) Health pamphlets and articles intended for the general public, produced by individuals, charitable organizations or special interest groups.

It is the information in the third category that gives the greatest reasons for concern, as far as patients and other non-health care professionals are concerned, because the content can be biased, inaccurate, confusing and misleading for a patient seeking information about a particular condition. As with all printed information, medical information on the Internet should contain ‘relevant, research based data in a form that is acceptable and useful to patients’. To facilitate these guidelines should be worked out for the production of medical information directed at patients and the general public.

Problem with the wealth of information available can, however, also affect the health care professionals. This principally arises not because of quality but because of the seemingly endless quantity of information available. The concept of information overload is already a reality for many health care professionals, it seeming to be impossible to keep up to date with developments.