Quality Assessment of Hypertension Treatment–Related Information on WeChat: Cross-sectional Study

The WeChat platform has become a primary source for medical information in China. However, no study has been conducted to explore the quality of information on WeChat for the treatment of hypertension, the leading chronic condition. This study aimed to explore the quality of information in articles...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of medical Internet research 2022-10, Vol.24 (10), p.e38567-e38567
Hauptverfasser: Yang, Yuting, Hou, Mengchi, Gong, Xue, Guo, Rui, Feng, Xing Lin, Tian, Rui
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:The WeChat platform has become a primary source for medical information in China. However, no study has been conducted to explore the quality of information on WeChat for the treatment of hypertension, the leading chronic condition. This study aimed to explore the quality of information in articles on WeChat that are related to hypertension treatment from the aspects of credibility, concreteness, accuracy, and completeness. We searched for all information related to hypertension treatment on WeChat based on several inclusion and exclusion criteria. We used 2 tools to evaluate information quality, and 2 independent reviewers performed the assessment with the 2 tools separately. First, we adopted the DISCERN instrument to assess the credibility and concreteness of the treatment information, with the outcomes classified into five grades: excellent, good, fair, poor, and very poor. Second, we applied the Chinese Guidelines for Prevention and Treatment of Hypertension (2018 edition) to evaluate the accuracy and completeness of the article information with regard to specific medical content. Third, we combined the results from the 2 assessments to arrive at the overall quality of the articles and explored the differences between, and associations of, the 2 independent assessments. Of the 223 articles that were retrieved, 130 (58.3%) full texts were included. Of these 130 articles, 81 (62.3%) described therapeutic measures for hypertension. The assessment based on the DISCERN instrument reported a mean score of 31.22 (SD 8.46). There were no articles rated excellent (mean score >63); most (111/130, 85.4%) of the articles did not refer to the consequences—in particular, quality of life—of no treatment. For specific medical content, adherence to the Chinese Guidelines for Prevention and Treatment of Hypertension was generally low in terms of accuracy and completeness, and there was much erroneous information. The overall mean quality score was 10.18 (SD 2.22) for the 130 articles, and the scores differed significantly across the 3 types (P=.03) and 5 sources (P=.02). Articles with references achieved higher scores for quality than those reporting none (P
ISSN:1438-8871
1439-4456
1438-8871
DOI:10.2196/38567