Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: May 27, 2019
Date Accepted: Mar 12, 2020
Quality of Health-related WeChat Public Accounts: Evaluation of HONcode Conformity and Article Suitability
ABSTRACT
Background:
As a representative of health information communication platforms accessed through mobile phones and mobile terminals, health-related WeChat public accounts (HWPAs) have a large consumer group in the Chinese-speaking world. However, there is still a lack of general understanding on the status quo of HWPAs and the quality of the articles they release.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to evaluate the HONcode conformity of HWPAs and evaluate the suitability of articles disseminated by HWPAs.
Methods:
Survey date: April 23-May 5, 2019. Based on the monthly (March 1-31, 2019) WeChat Index provided by Qingbo Big Data, the top 100 HWPAs were examined to evaluate their HONcode compliance. The first four articles published by each HWPA on the survey day were selected as samples for evaluating their suitability. All materials were assessed by three raters. The assessment tools were the HONcode checklist and SAM score sheet. Data analysis was completed with SPSS version 17.0 and Excel version 2013.
Results:
A total of 93 HWPAs and 210 articles that they had released were included in this study. For six of the eight principles, 93 HWPAs nearly consistently did not meet the requirements of the HONcode. The HWPAs certified by Tencent Corporation (66, 70.97%) were generally slightly superior to those without such certification (27, 29.03%) in terms of HONcode principles. The mean SAM score for the 210 articles was 67.72 (SD 10.930), which indicated “adequate” suitability. There was no significant difference in the SAM scores of the articles published by certified HWPAs and those published by uncertified HWPAs (P > .05), except in the literacy requirements dimension (t = -2.418, P = .02).
Conclusions:
The HWPAs had low HONcode conformity. Although the suitability of health information released by HWPAs was at a moderate level, there were still problems such as difficulty in tracing information sources, overflow of implicit advertisements, and irregular usage of charts. Meanwhile, the low approval requirements of HWPAs were not conducive to improving their service quality.
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