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JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2020 Mar 27. doi: 10.2196/18717. [Epub ahead of print]
Assessment of health information about the prevention of COVID-19 on the Internet.
Hern?ndez-Garc?a I1, Gim?nez-J?lvez T2.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND:
The Internet is a large source of health information, and it has the capacity to influence its users. However, the information found on the Internet often lacks scientific rigor, as anyone may upload its content. This factor is a cause of great concern to scientific societies, governments, and users.
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of our study was to investigate the information about the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on the Internet.
METHODS:
On 2020-02-29 we performed a Google search with the terms "Prevention coronavirus", "Prevention COVID-19", "Prevenci?n coronavirus", and "Prevenci?n COVID-19". A univariate analysis was performed to study the association between the type of authorship, and country of publication, and recommendations to avoid COVID-19 according to the World Health Organization.
RESULTS:
In total, 80 weblinks were reviewed. Most of them were produced in the USA and Spain (72.5%), by digital media and official public health organizations (75.1%). The most mentioned WHO preventive measure was "wash your hands frequently" (81.3%). Less frequent recommendation was related to "stay home if you feel unwell" (32.5%). The analysis by type of author (official public health organizations versus digital media) revealed significant differences regarding the recommendation to wear a mask if you are healthy only if caring for a person with suspected COVID-19 (OR = 4.39). According to country of publication (Spain versus the USA) significant differences were detected regarding some recommendations, such as "wash your hands frequently" (OR = 9.82), "cover your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze" (OR = 4.59), or "stay home if you feel unwell" (OR = 0.31).
CONCLUSIONS:
It is necessary to urge and promote the use of the websites of official public health organizations when seeking information on COVID-19 preventive measures on the Internet. In this way, they will be able to obtain high-quality information more frequently, and such websites may improve their accessibility and positioning given that search engines justify the positioning of links obtained in a search based on the frequency of access to them.
PMID:32217507DOI:10.2196/18717
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