Evaluation of Iranian-Islamic Medicine Websites Using WebMedQual Scale

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Leila Nemati-Anaraki 1
Seyed Ehsan Seyyedan 2
Fatemeh Nejatbakhsh 3
1 Assistant Professor, Medical Library and Information Sciences, Department of Medical Library and Information Sciences, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
2 MSc Student, Medical Library and Information Sciences, Department of Medical Library and Information Sciences, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
3 Assistant Professor, Traditional Medicine, Department of Traditional Medicine, School of Traditional Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Introduction: Since the science of medicine is based on observation, in addition to medical personnel, the general public also searches the internet when faced with a certain disease in order to gather information about that disease and attempt to treat it through traditional or modern methods. The purpose of this study was to rank Iranian-Islamic medicine websites using WebMedQual scale.Methods: This was a descriptive survey with applied results. To gather the necessary data, a checklist was used based on the standard WebMedQual scale. The initial study population consisted of 97 Iranian-Islamic medicine websites. After eliminating websites below a certain quality threshold, a total of 74 websites were evaluated. The minimum and maximum possible scores in the checklist were 0 and 83 points, respectively. There are a total of 89 questions in the checklist; 83 until the end of the confidentiality section and 6 questions regarding e-commerce. The acceptable score for websites was 41.5. The results are presented as mean score and optimal score.Results: The results indicate that the websites were average in terms of content and credibility, relatively good in terms of design, accessibility, and usability, almost good in terms of links, moderate in terms of user support, and relatively weak in terms of confidentiality. The best Iranian-Islamic medicine website was Tandorostan with a total score of 72.Conclusion: It can be concluded that the majority of websites in this area have moderate to high quality. These results identified credible websites in medicine and can be used to create a subject list of Iranian-Islamic websites.

Keywords

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