bims-librar Biomed News
on Biomedical librarianship
Issue of 2019–03–24
eight papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society
  1. "I was Right about Vaccination": Confirmation Bias and Health Literacy in Online Health Information Seeking.
  2. Factors associated with online sexually transmissible infection information seeking among young people in Malaysia: an observational study.
  3. Searching for Information on the Risks of Combined Hormonal Contraceptives on the Internet: A Qualitative Study Across Six European Countries.
  4. Understanding the patient perspective of epilepsy treatment through text mining of online patient support groups.
  5. Improving the Quality of Consumer Health Information on Wikipedia: Case Series.
  6. Biomolecular Databases and Subnetwork Identification Approaches of Interest to Big Data Community: An Expert Review.
  7. Measuring health information seeking challenges in chronic disease: A psychometric analysis of a brief scale.
  8. Medical Information on the Internet.
  1. J Health Commun. 2019 Mar 21. 1-12
    "I was Right about Vaccination": Confirmation Bias and Health Literacy in Online Health Information Seeking.
    Corine S Meppelink, Edith G Smit, Marieke L Fransen, Nicola Diviani.
      When looking for health information, many people turn to the Internet. Searching for online health information (OHI), however, also involves the risk of confirmation bias by means of selective exposure to information that confirms one's existing beliefs and a biased evaluation of this information. This study tests whether biased selection and biased evaluation of OHI occur in the context of early-childhood vaccination and whether people's health literacy (HL) level either prevents or facilitates these processes. Vaccination beliefs were measured for 480 parents of young children (aged 0-4 years) using an online survey, after which they were exposed to a list of ten vaccine-related message headers. People were asked to select those headers that interested them most. They also had to evaluate two texts which discussed vaccination positively and negatively for credibility, usefulness, and convincingness. The results showed that people select more belief-consistent information compared to belief-inconsistent information and perceived belief-confirming information as being more credible, useful, and convincing. Biased selection and biased perceptions of message convincingness were more prevalent among people with higher HL, and health communication professionals should be aware of this finding in their practice.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2019.1583701
  2. Sex Health. 2019 Mar 19.
    Factors associated with online sexually transmissible infection information seeking among young people in Malaysia: an observational study.
    Sharina Mahavera Mohamad Shakir, Li Ping Wong, Khatijah Lim Abdullah, Philippe Adam.
      Background:The Internet is an important resource of information about sexually transmissible infections (STIs) among young people. Little is known of the facilitators of online STI information seeking. This study aimed to identify the factors associated with online STI information seeking among youth in Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among Malaysian youth aged 18-25 years who were recruited through social media. Results: Among 1530 respondents who completed the survey, 57.1% sought online STI information in the past 12 months mostly from general Internet websites, health websites, and Facebook. Respondents' overall STI knowledge was low. Young people who had higher STI knowledge (OR = 2.47, 95% CI = 1.87-3.25, P = 0.000), had intention-to-seek online STI information (OR = 2.02, 95% CI = 1.23-3.30, P = 0.000), identified as homosexual or bisexual (OR = 1.67, 95% CI = 1.08-2.57, P = 0.020), experienced STI symptoms (OR = 1.51, 95%CI = 1.02-2.22, P = 0.040), were in a relationship (OR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.08-1.86, P = 0.012) and had high perceived quality of online STI information (OR = 1.41, 95%CI = 1.09-1.83, P = 0.009) were more likely to seek online STI information. Conclusions: Findings suggest the need to increase STI knowledge and perceived quality of online STI information among Malaysian youth. Young people with low STI knowledge, who are heterosexual, sexually active without STI symptoms and single would benefit from reliable sources of online STI information for STI prevention.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1071/SH17198
  3. J Med Internet Res. 2019 Mar 18. 21(3): e10810
    Searching for Information on the Risks of Combined Hormonal Contraceptives on the Internet: A Qualitative Study Across Six European Countries.
    Paula Gomes Alves, Irene Petersen, Fiona Stevenson.
       BACKGROUND: Searching for health information online is increasingly common and is an obvious source of information about oral combined hormonal contraceptives (CHCs) and their risks. However, little is known about how publicly available websites address the risks of CHCs, particularly venous thromboembolism (VTE).
    OBJECTIVE: The aim was to explore the information available to women about VTE and other risks of CHCs on websites available through commonly used search engines.
    METHODS: A qualitative study was conducted to explore whether and how websites about CHCs in Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom make reference to VTE and other CHC risks. A systematic search procedure was adopted across the six countries, based on relevant keywords. The search was carried out using the Google search engine by fluent/native speakers of each language. A content analysis approach was conducted to extract information from the selected websites.
    RESULTS: A total of 357 websites were reviewed. Nearly all (343/357, 96.1%) the websites mentioned VTE as a risk of CHCs, with approximately half referring to other side effects as well. One-fifth (92/357, 25.8%) of the websites provided suggestions about the best contraceptive method to use, and only a minority (23/357, 6.4%) recommended women discuss CHCs with their health professionals. Sites were generally run by the media (110/357 30.8%) or medical services from nongovernmental organizations (140/357, 39.2%). Only a minority of websites referred to organizations such as the European Medicines Agency (11/357, 3.1%).
    CONCLUSIONS: Despite the large number of websites containing information about oral CHCs and their risks, particularly VTE, only a limited number referred to information from accredited health agency sources. We argue this is a missed opportunity for accredited health agencies to share high-quality information to assist women using CHCs to make informed decisions about contraception.
    Keywords:  content analysis; health information; information sources; internet; oral combined hormonal contraceptives; qualitative research; risks; venous thromboembolism
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/10810
  4. Epilepsy Behav. 2019 Mar 17. pii: S1525-5050(18)30941-7. [Epub ahead of print]94 65-71
    Understanding the patient perspective of epilepsy treatment through text mining of online patient support groups.
    Kai He, Na Hong, Samuel Lapalme-Remis, Yangyang Lan, Ming Huang, Chen Li, Lixia Yao.
       OBJECTIVE: Epilepsy is among the most common chronic neurologic diseases. There is a need for more data on patient perspectives of treatment to guide patient-centered care initiatives. Patients with epilepsy share their experiences on social media anonymously, but little is known about those discussions. Our aim was to learn what patients with epilepsy discuss regarding their condition and identify treatment-related themes from online patient support groups.
    METHODS: A total of 355,838 posts were collected from three online support groups for patients with epilepsy through a crawling script, and an analytical pipeline was built to identify patient conversation content through leveraging of multiple text mining methods. Results were also displayed by network visualization methods.
    RESULTS: Patients with epilepsy sought information about medical treatments, shared their treatment experiences, and sought help from other posters. Key themes related to treatments included the search for optimal personalized treatment strategies as well as identifying and coping with adverse effects.
    SIGNIFICANCE: This study showed the feasibility of learning about concerns of patients with epilepsy, especially treatment issues, through text mining methods. However, some manual selection and filtering were necessary to ensure quality results for the treatment analysis. Providers should be aware of online discussions and use analyses of such discussions to help guide effective patient engagement during care.
    Keywords:  Epilepsy treatment; Patient concern; Social media; Text mining
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.02.002
  5. J Med Internet Res. 2019 Mar 18. 21(3): e12450
    Improving the Quality of Consumer Health Information on Wikipedia: Case Series.
    Shira Schecter Weiner, Jill Horbacewicz, Lane Rasberry, Yocheved Bensinger-Brody.
       BACKGROUND: Wikipedia is one of the most consulted health resources in the world. Since the public is using health information from Wikipedia to make health care decisions, improving the quality of that health information is in the public interest. The open editable content design of Wikipedia and quality control processes in place provide an opportunity to add high-value, evidence-based information and take an active role in improving the health care information infrastructure.
    OBJECTIVE: The aim of this project was to enhance Wikipedia health pages using high-quality, current research findings and track the persistence of those edits and number of page views after the changes to assess the reach of this initiative.
    METHODS: We conducted Wikipedia Editathons with 3 different cohorts of Physical Therapy (PT) students to add high-quality health information to existing Wikipedia pages. Students synthesized best evidence information and updated and/or corrected existing Wikipedia entries on specific health pages. To evaluate the impact of these contributions, we examined two factors: (1) response to our contributions from the Wikipedia editing community, including number and type of subsequent edits as well as persistence of the student contributions and (2) number of page views by the public from the time of the page edits.
    RESULTS: A total of 98 PT students in 3 different cohorts engaged in Editathons, editing 24 health pages. Of the 24 edits, 22 persisted at the end of the observation period (from time of entry to May 31, 2018) and received nearly 8 million page views. Each health page had an average of 354,724 page views.
    CONCLUSIONS: The Wikipedia Editathon is an effective way to continuously enhance the quality of health information available on Wikipedia. It is also an excellent way of bridging health technology with best-evidence medical facts and disseminating accurate, useful information to the public.
    Keywords:  Wikipedia; consumer health information; health literacy; physical therapy education; public health
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/12450
  6. OMICS. 2019 Mar;23(3): 138-151
    Biomolecular Databases and Subnetwork Identification Approaches of Interest to Big Data Community: An Expert Review.
    Olfat Al-Harazi, Achraf El Allali, Dilek Colak.
      Next-generation sequencing approaches and genome-wide studies have become essential for characterizing the mechanisms of human diseases. Consequently, many researchers have applied these approaches to discover the genetic/genomic causes of common complex and rare human diseases, generating multiomics big data that span the continuum of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and many other system science fields. Therefore, there is a significant and unmet need for biological databases and tools that enable and empower the researchers to analyze, integrate, and make sense of big data. There are currently large number of databases that offer different types of biological information. In particular, the integration of gene expression profiles and protein-protein interaction networks provides a deeper understanding of the complex multilayered molecular architecture of human diseases. Therefore, there has been a growing interest in developing methodologies that integrate and contextualize big data from molecular interaction networks to identify biomarkers of human diseases at a subnetwork resolution as well. In this expert review, we provide a comprehensive summary of most popular biomolecular databases for molecular interactions (e.g., Biological General Repository for Interaction Datasets, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes and Search Tool for The Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins), gene-disease associations (e.g., Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, Disease-Gene Network, MalaCards), and population-specific databases (e.g., Human Genetic Variation Database), and describe some examples of their usage and potential applications. We also present the most recent subnetwork identification approaches and discuss their main advantages and limitations. As the field of data science continues to emerge, the present analysis offers a deeper and contextualized understanding of the available databases in molecular biomedicine.
    Keywords:  big data; biological databases; data science; disease biomarkers; gene expression; genomics; protein–protein interaction
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1089/omi.2018.0205
  7. Chronic Illn. 2019 Mar 19. 1742395319836476
    Measuring health information seeking challenges in chronic disease: A psychometric analysis of a brief scale.
    Samantha R Paige, Elizabeth Flood-Grady, Janice L Krieger, Michael Stellefson, M David Miller.
      Information seeking is a cornerstone of patient activation in chronic disease self-management. To date, there are few brief and literacy-sensitive tools to measure intrinsic barriers of health information seeking. The Health Information National Trends Survey includes four items from the Information Seeking Experiences scale to measure frustration, effort, concern, and comprehension of information sought during a recent medical/health information search. Limited evidence exists for its construct validity and use in primary data collection in chronic disease. This measurement study examines the psychometric properties of the scale. Qualtrics Panelists with at least one chronic disease ( N = 684) participated in an online survey. The average score was M = 12.85 ( SD = 3.97), indicating a moderate degree of health information seeking challenges. Confirmatory factor analysis of data collected using this scale supported unidimensionality (RMSEA = .03; CFI/TLI = .99/.99). There was adequate scale (ω = .83) and item (value = .98) reliabilities. Rasch analyses showed optimal measurement error and response predictability with item-fit (values = .80-1.20). Response option "agree" was less likely to be selected than any other response option, although not posing a threat to scale reliability. Results demonstrate that this brief scale has sufficient measurement properties for its use as a measure of intrinsic health information seeking barriers among patients with chronic disease.
    Keywords:  Chronic disease; health information seeking; measurement; psychosocial barriers
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/1742395319836476
  8. J Pastoral Care Counsel. 2019 Mar;73(1): 52-54
    Medical Information on the Internet.
    Devery A Howerton.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/1542305019833319
This page is being maintained by Thomas Krichel. It was last updated on 2024‒11‒22 at 4:18.