Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?
OBJECTIVE To determine the significance of the English Wikipedia as a source of online health information. DESIGN The authors measured Wikipedia's ranking on general Internet search engines by entering keywords from MedlinePlus, NHS Direct Online, and the National Organization of Rare Diseases as qu...
| Publicado en: | Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association Vol. 16; no. 4; pp. 471 - 480 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
| Formato: | research Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Oxford University Press / USA
Jul/Aug2009
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=105373922&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 105373922 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 10675027 FZ9 jtl: Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association issn: 10675027 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul/Aug2009 vid: 16 iid: 4 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 105373922 NLM19390105 2010332846 10.1197/jamia.M3059 NLM19390105 105373922 ppf: 471 ppct: 9 formats: tig: atl: Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter? aug: au: Laurent MR Vickers TJ Laurent, Michaël R Vickers, Tim J affil: Faculty of Medicine, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (MRL), Belgium; Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University, School of Medicine (TJV), St. Louis, MO sug: subj: Consumer Health Information Utilization Information Retrieval Methods Information Services Utilization Internet Utilization Medline Utilization Human ab: OBJECTIVE To determine the significance of the English Wikipedia as a source of online health information. DESIGN The authors measured Wikipedia's ranking on general Internet search engines by entering keywords from MedlinePlus, NHS Direct Online, and the National Organization of Rare Diseases as queries into search engine optimization software. We assessed whether article quality influenced this ranking. The authors tested whether traffic to Wikipedia coincided with epidemiological trends and news of emerging health concerns, and how it compares to MedlinePlus. MEASUREMENTS Cumulative incidence and average position of Wikipedia compared to other Web sites among the first 20 results on general Internet search engines (Google, Google UK, Yahoo, and MSN, and page view statistics for selected Wikipedia articles and MedlinePlus pages. RESULTS Wikipedia ranked among the first ten results in 71-85% of search engines and keywords tested. Wikipedia surpassed MedlinePlus and NHS Direct Online (except for queries from the latter on Google UK), and ranked higher with quality articles. Wikipedia ranked highest for rare diseases, although its incidence in several categories decreased. Page views increased parallel to the occurrence of 20 seasonal disorders and news of three emerging health concerns. Wikipedia articles were viewed more often than MedlinePlus Topic (p = 0.001) but for MedlinePlus Encyclopedia pages, the trend was not significant (p = 0.07-0.10). CONCLUSIONS Based on its search engine ranking and page view statistics, the English Wikipedia is a prominent source of online health information compared to the other online health information providers studied. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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