ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Ebola virus disease is an emergency situation in the area of international public health for which currently, there is no standard treatment. Thus, there is an essential need for awareness of individuals about the Ebola disease and consequently its prevention. Internet and health websites are considered a source of health information about certain diseases. Therefore, in this study, the credibility of Persian-language websites on Ebola is assessed. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The term "Ebola" was searched using the Yahoo, Google, and Bing search engines. The first 30 websites resulting from each search engine were studied. Persian language was a prerequisite for inclusion. Duplicate and inaccessible websites were excluded and 62 websites were retained for evaluation. These websites were manually assessed by the researchers. The research tool was HONcode official toolbar as well as the checklist set by the researchers based on the HONcode of Conduct tool. The data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 software. RESULTS: None of the retrieved websites was officially approved by the HONcode of Conduct. Moreover, the manual evaluation showed that none of them had fully considered the eight criteria of HONcode. The results showed that most of the retrieved websites (62%) were commercial. The justifiability criterion had been considered in 89% of the studied websites, but the authority criterion had been considered by only 16% of the websites. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Regarding the poor reliability of Persian websites on the Ebola disease, and considering that Persian language people prefer to read the information in their native language, it is recommended that the authorized health organizations introduce reliable health websites in the Persian language. This will help them to take part in active healthcare decision-making and disease prevention. Moreover, it is necessary to educate people especially Persian language ones about the website evaluation tools, which can be used to assess the credibility of health websites before consuming the information on those websites.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder defined by impairments in social interaction and verbal and nonverbal communication. PURPOSE: Determine the association between use of assisted reproduction technology (ART) and the risk of ASD among children. METHODS: This case-control study included 300 participants (100 cases, 200 controls). The control group included women with a child aged 2-10 years without ASD, while the cases were women with a child aged 2-10 years with ASD. We used a researcher-made questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Stata ver. 14 at the 0.05 significance level. RESULTS: In the univariate analysis, there was significant association between child sex, delivery mode, history of preterm delivery, history of using ART, and maternal age at child's birth and the risk of ASD. After the adjustment for other variables, this association was significant for male sex (2.66; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.11-4.31; P=0.001) and history of using ART (4.03; 95% CI, 1.76-9.21; P=0.001). Therefore, after the adjustment for confounder variables, there was no significant association between ART and the risk of ASD among children (4.98; 95% CI, 0.91-27.30; P=0.065). CONCLUSION: After the adjustment for other variables, risk factors for ASD were male sex and history preterm delivery. Thus, there was no significant association between ART and the risk of ASD among children.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Health service providers use internet as a tool for the spreading of health information and people often go on the web to acquire information about a disease. A wide range of information with varying qualities and by authors with varying degrees of credibility has thus become accessible by the public. Most people believe that the health information available on the internet is reliable. This issue reveals the need for having a critical view of the health information available online that is directly related to people's life. The Ebola epidemic is an emergency situation in the international public health domain and the internet is regarded as an important source for obtaining information on this disease. Given the absence of studies on the trustworthiness of health websites on Ebola, the present study was conducted to assess the trustworthiness of websites which are focused on this disease. METHODS: The term "Ebola" was searched in Google, Yahoo and Bing search engines. Google Chrome browser was used for this purpose with the settings fixed on yielding 10 results per page. The first 30 English language websites in each of the three search engines were evaluated manually by using the HONcode of conduct tool. Moreover, the official HONcode toolbar was used to identify websites that had been officially certified by HON foundation. Results: Almost the half of the retrieved websites were commercial (49%). Complementarity was the least-observed criterion (37%) in all the websites retrieved from all three-search engines. Justifiability, Transparency and Financial Disclosure had been completely observed (100%). DISCUSSION: The present study showed that only three criteria (Justifiability, Transparency and Financial Disclosure) out of the eight HON criteria were observed in the examined websites. Like other health websites, the websites concerned with Ebola are not reliable and should be used with caution. CONCLUSION: Considering the lack of a specific policy about the publication of health information on the web, it is necessary for healthcare providers to advise their patients to use only credible websites. Furthermore, teaching them the criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of health websites would be helpful.
