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The DARTS tool for assessing online medicines information
Ulla Närhi1, Marika Pohjanoksa-Mäntylä, Anna Karjalainen
1European Commission, Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry, Unit F/2, Avenue l'Auderghem 45, Brussels, Belgium. ulla.narhi@ec.europa.eu
Pharmacy World & Science : PWS
|September 16, 2008
Summary
People with depression find the DARTS tool helpful for assessing online medicine information quality. This five-item tool can prompt users to evaluate information and serve as a reminder of quality concerns.
Area of Science:
- Health Informatics
- Patient Information Quality
- Mental Health Information Seeking
Background:
- The internet is a growing source of medicine information, but its quality is inconsistent.
- Patients, particularly those with depression, need reliable methods to assess online health information.
- The European Commission developed the five-item DARTS tool to aid quality assessment of online medicine information.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore how individuals with depression evaluate the quality of online medicine information.
- To assess the perceived utility of the DARTS tool in assisting with online information quality evaluation among this population.
Main Methods:
- Six focus group discussions were conducted with 29 participants diagnosed with depression in Helsinki, Finland.
- Participants openly discussed evaluating online medicine information quality before being introduced to the DARTS tool.
- Transcripts were thematically content analyzed by two researchers.
Main Results:
- Participants were critical of online information but rarely used systematic quality assessment criteria.
- No participants were familiar with existing quality assessment tools.
- The DARTS tool was perceived as concise, easy to use, and helpful in addressing concerns about information quality.
Conclusions:
- The DARTS tool shows potential as a prompt for individuals with depression to assess online medicine information.
- Its five criteria can support a systematic quality assessment approach and act as a general reminder of quality issues.
- Further research is required to validate the DARTS tool's effectiveness compared to other assessment instruments.
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