The influence of quality criteria on parents' evaluation of medical web-pages: An Italian randomised trial

The aim of this study is to verify the usefulness for parents of a web evaluation framework composed of ten quality criteria to improve their ability to assess the quality level of medical web sites. We conducted a randomised controlled trial that included two groups of parents who independently evaluated five paediatric web sites by filling out two distinct questionnaires: group A with the evaluation framework, group B without it. 40 volunteers were recruited from parents referring to the General Paediatrics Out-patients Department who satisfied the following eligibility criteria: Internet users, at least 1 child under 12 months old, no professional skill in Internet and medicine. The survey was taken between February 2, 2000 and March 22, 2000. Parents evaluated each web site and assigned a score, compared with a gold standard created by a group of experts. Suggesting evaluation criteria to parents seem useful for an improvement of their ability to evaluate web sites.