Development and testing of the health information website evaluation tool on neck pain websites - An analysis of reliability, validity, and utility

Objective: Online health information contributes to patient education and knowledge on disease management. The aims of this study were to design the Health Information Website Evaluation Tool (HIWET) to evaluate the quality of online information, and to investigate the reliability, validity, and utility of HIWET.

Methods: HIWET was developed by a literature search and small-scale pilot testing. Upon development, psychometric properties of HIWET were evaluated on 20 neck pain websites. Reliability was analysed using Intra class correlation coefficient (ICC). Validity was analysed using Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients. Utility was analysed using an independent samples t-test.

Results: HIWET demonstrated excellent intra-rater reliability (0.94 (0.98-0.99), p < .001) and fair inter-rater reliability (0.55 (0.88-0.10), p = .04). HIWET demonstrated validity with strong correlation against DISCERN (r = 0.656, n = 20, p = .002) and LIDA (r = 0.564, n = 20, p = 0.010). HIWET was time-efficient when compared to three comparison tools combined.

Conclusion: HIWET is a reliable and valid tool for evaluating the qualities of online health information.

Practical implications: HIWET has the advantages of being a simple, quick to use and freely accessible tool. It can be implemented into clinical practice, education, and research to evaluate quality of online health information.