Journal of medical Internet research
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2011
Comparative StudyA comparison of a postal survey and mixed-mode survey using a questionnaire on patients' experiences with breast care.
The Internet is increasingly considered to be an efficient medium for assessing the quality of health care seen from the patients' perspective. Potential benefits of Internet surveys such as time efficiency, reduced effort, and lower costs should be balanced against potential weaknesses such as low response rates and accessibility for only a subset of potential participants. Combining an Internet questionnaire with a traditional paper follow-up questionnaire (mixed-mode survey) can possibly compensate for these weaknesses and provide an alternative to a postal survey. ⋯ Mixed-mode surveys are an alternative method to postal surveys that yield comparable response rates and groups of respondents, at lower costs. Moreover, quality of health care was not rated differently by respondents to the mixed-mode or postal survey. Researchers should consider using mixed-mode surveys instead of postal surveys, especially when investigating younger or more highly educated populations.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2011
Do family physicians retrieve synopses of clinical research previously read as email alerts?
A synopsis of new clinical research highlights important aspects of one study in a brief structured format. When delivered as email alerts, synopses enable clinicians to become aware of new developments relevant for practice. Once read, a synopsis can become a known item of clinical information. In time-pressured situations, remembering a known item may facilitate information retrieval by the clinician. However, exactly how synopses first delivered as email alerts influence retrieval at some later time is not known. ⋯ In the single knowledge resource we studied, email alerts containing research-based synopses were rarely retrieved. Our findings help us to better understand the effect of push on pull and to improve the integration of research-based information within electronic resources for clinicians.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2011
Can tweets predict citations? Metrics of social impact based on Twitter and correlation with traditional metrics of scientific impact.
Citations in peer-reviewed articles and the impact factor are generally accepted measures of scientific impact. Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, blogs or social bookmarking tools provide the possibility to construct innovative article-level or journal-level metrics to gauge impact and influence. However, the relationship of the these new metrics to traditional metrics such as citations is not known. ⋯ Tweets can predict highly cited articles within the first 3 days of article publication. Social media activity either increases citations or reflects the underlying qualities of the article that also predict citations, but the true use of these metrics is to measure the distinct concept of social impact. Social impact measures based on tweets are proposed to complement traditional citation metrics. The proposed twimpact factor may be a useful and timely metric to measure uptake of research findings and to filter research findings resonating with the public in real time.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2011
EditorialCONSORT-EHEALTH: improving and standardizing evaluation reports of Web-based and mobile health interventions.
Web-based and mobile health interventions (also called "Internet interventions" or "ehealth/mhealth interventions") are tools or treatments, typically behaviorally based, that are operationalized and transformed for delivery via the Internet or mobile platforms. These include electronic tools for patients, informal caregivers, healthy consumers, and health care providers. The "Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials" (CONSORT) was developed to improve the suboptimal reporting of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). While broadly the CONSORT statement can be applied to provide guidance on how ehealth and mhealth trials should be reported, RCTs of web-based interventions pose very specific issues and challenges, in particular related to reporting sufficient details of the intervention to allow replication and theory-building. ⋯ CONSORT-EHEALTH has the potential to improve reporting and provides a basis for evaluating the validity and applicability of ehealth trials. Subitems describing how the intervention should be reported can also be used for non-RCT evaluation reports. As part of the development process, an evaluation component is essential, therefore feedback from authors will be solicited, and a before-after study will evaluate whether reporting has been improved.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2011
Internet use and eHealth literacy of low-income parents whose children have special health care needs.
The Internet has revolutionized the way in which many Americans search for health care information. Unfortunately, being able to use the Internet for this purpose is predicated on having access to the Internet and being able to understand and comprehend online health information. This is especially important for parents of children with special health care needs who are forced to make many medical decisions throughout the lives of their children. Yet, no information is available about this vulnerable group. ⋯ Low-income parents of children with special health care needs have access to and use the Internet as a source of information about their children's health. However, some parents are unable to distinguish between high and low quality information and are not confident in using the Internet. This information is timely because as the pressure to use the Internet to empower consumers and exchange information increases, issues related to access and disparities must be better understood.