ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The Internet provides great opportunities for patient healthcare education, but poses risks that inaccurate, outdated, or harmful information will be disseminated. Osteoporosis is a topic of great interest to patients, many of whom use the Internet to obtain medical information. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate measurement tools to determine the quality of osteoporosis websites for patients. METHODS: Quality indicators in the categories of content, credibility, navigability, currency, and readability were incorporated into separate evaluation tools for healthcare professionals and for patients. Websites were selected from an Internet search. Interobserver reliability and validity were assessed, and a sample of osteoporosis websites was evaluated by an osteoporosis nurse educator and compared to patient evaluations. RESULTS: For the quality indicators, there was 79% agreement between the osteoporosis nurse educators, 88% agreement between the physician osteoporosis experts, and 71% agreement comparing the osteoporosis nurse educators to the physician osteoporosis experts. Quality scores for evaluated websites ranged from 18-96 (maximum possible=100), with a mean of 66. Websites with Uniform Resource Locator (URL) suffix .com scored significantly lower compared to those with .gov (P<0.05), .edu (P<0.01), and .org (P<0.01). Healthcare professionals and patients were in agreement on the quality of the highest-rated websites, with less agreement for lower-rated websites. CONCLUSIONS: In summary, a tool for measuring the quality of medical websites was developed and evaluated. Significant variability in osteoporosis-website quality was observed. Higher-quality scores were associated with a higher level of search engine match and specific URL suffixes. A validated tool for evaluating medical websites may have value in assisting patients to select high-quality osteoporosis educational information on the Internet, and may encourage website developers to improve the quality of information that is provided.
Subject(s)
Internet/standards , Osteoporosis/therapy , Evaluation Studies as Topic , Humans , Information Dissemination , Information Services/standards , Medical Informatics/standards , Observer Variation , Patient Education as Topic/standards , Quality ControlABSTRACT
La meningitis aguda meningococcica se mantiene a nivel mundial como una endemia en la que se intercalan periodicamente brotes epidemicos cada 10 a 15 anos. Esta distribucion de la frecuencia puede ser el resultado de dos manifestaciones inmunologicas del grupo de poblacion expuesto. Por una parte un incremento de morbilidad en el grupo etario menor de seis meses de edad en ninos con una inmunodeficiencia celular hereditaria. Por otra una acumulacion progresiva de personas de 5 a 25 anos de edad que no han tenido la oportunidad de tener un contacto infectante con la N.meningitidis constituyendo un nucleo susceptible que enferma en forma explosiva cuando ha crecido en cantidad suficiente.Analizamos los antecedentes de brotes epidemicos en las Americas y luego el brote epidemico de El Salvador que se desarrollo de Noviembre de 1978 al mes de Mayo de 1980, producido por una N. meningitidis del serogrupo C. La mortalidad de la epidemia fue de 15.9%
Subject(s)
Child , Adolescent , Adult , Middle Aged , Humans , Male , Female , Disease Outbreaks , Meningitis, Meningococcal , El SalvadorABSTRACT
Analizamos algunas caracteristicas clinicas de relevancia de 80 meningitis aguda bacteriana, primarias y secundarias, atendidas en el hospital Rosales en los anos 1979, 1980 y 1981. Son primarias 69 y secundarias 11. Se describen las bacterias responsables y algunas caracteristicas epidemiologicas de importancia. Se ha encontrado como elementos del mal pronostico el estado de semicoma o coma al momento de la consulta, el inicio y desarrollo brusco de la infeccion, el desarrollo de convulsiones, la inflamacion y alteracion funcional de los pares craneales III, IV, V, VI y VII, la inflamacion del nervio o region vestibular y la concomitancia de una neumonia o diarrea. La fiebre implica un mal pronostico cuando sobrepasa los 40oC al momento de la consulta, falleciendo dos tercios de estos enfermos. Analizamos las manifestaciones hemorragiparas y la neutrofilia sanguinea y del liquido cefalorraquideo. Encontramos una mortalidad de 19,52 y 73% para las meningitis por N. meningitidis, Streptococcus y bacilos gram negativos respectivamente. Fallecieron en las primeras 48 horas de estancia hospitalaria un 71, 36 y 38% de pacientes con meningitis por Neisseria, Streptococcus y bacilos gram negativos respectivamente
