Journal of Education and Health Promotion

Quality evaluation of Persian nutrition and diet therapy websites

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

. Zahra Gholizadeh
. Ahmad Papi 1
. Hasan Ashrafi‑rizi 1
. Leila Shahrzadi 1
. Akbar Hasanzadeh 2

1 Department of Medical Library and Information Science, Health Information Technology Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences,

2 Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Faculty of Health, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Nowadays websites are among the most important information sources used by
most people. With the spread of websites, especially those related to health issues, the number of
their visitors also increases, more than half of which are about nutritional information. Therefore,
quality analysis of nutrition and diet therapy websites is of outmost importance. This study aims to
evaluate the quality of Persian nutrition and diet therapy websites.
METHODS: The current work is a survey study and uses an applied study method. The statistical
population consists of 51 Persian websites about nutrition and diet therapy and census method was
used in order to study them. Data gathering was done using a checklist and with direct visit to each
website. Descriptive and analytical statistics were used to analyse the gathered data with the help
of SPSS 21 software.
RESULTS: Findings showed that content (66.7%), organization (82.4%), user friendly
interfaces (52.9%) and total quality (70.6%) of most websites had a mediocre score while the design
score for most of the websites (70.6%) was acceptable also organizational websites had better design,
organization and quality compared to private websites. The three websites with the highest general
quality score were the websites of “Novel Diet Therapy,” “Behsite” and “Dr. BehdadiPour” (jointly)
and “Dr. Kermani” respectively. Also in the dimension of content the factors of goal, relevance and
credibility, in the dimension of design the factors of color, text and sound, pictures and videos, in the
dimension of organization the factors of stability and indexing and in the dimension of user friendliness
the factors of confidentiality, credibility and personalization had the highest scores.
CONCLUSION: The results showed that the design score was higher than other scores. Also the
general quality score of the websites was mediocre and was not desirable. Also websites didn’t have
suitable scores in every factor. Since most people search the internet for nutritional and diet therapy
information, the creators of these websites should endeavor to fix the shortcomings of their websites
and increase the quality of their websites in several different areas.

Keywords

Diet therapy
evaluation
nutrition
quality
websites
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Journal of Education and Health Promotion
Volume 7, Issue 3
May and June 2017
Pages 1-6

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