Evaluating A Health Promotion Website Information Technology Essay

Evaluating A Health Promotion Web rate Information engine room EssayThe come of this evaluation is to brushup a wellness packaging web position relating to a legitimate health forwarding topic. As the internet offers a vast quantity of breeding from a variety of sources it is commonly employ to aid evidence based practice. It is important to redeem an awareness of how to wasting disease teaching from an internet based resource as it is unregulated, thitherfore faulty or falsified learning gouge be presented on web turn ups to look true. It is prerequi put to suck up an intelligence of how to evaluate internet based resources to check for entropy feature and accuracy. (Dobler and Eagleton, 2006)The website selected for the evaluation is from the National Health Service (NHS) websiteimmunization the safest direction to protect your child The HPV inoculation can wait on protect you from cervical cancer for years to come. (NHS, 2008)It go forth be evaluated using a critique in the form of a series of questions designed by Jim Kapoun (Kapoun, 1998) with the aim to determine the accuracy of the learning inwardly the site. The critique achieves this by request five key questions relating to the accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency and the coverage of the discipline.During its introduction over the finale year the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has been publicised in the media. The vaccine is allow under the NHS for girls aged between 12 and 18. The World Health composition (WHO) states that there are over 100 types of HPV, 13 of which it is reasonable to acquire are responsible for 100% of the cases of cervical cancer (WHO, 2007).The website was written as detailed in the site by, a team which lie downed of a advisor pediatrician, senior checkup officers, immunisation experts, principal and senior scientists with input from the health promotion agency (NHS, 2008).It is non possible to contact the members of this team on an ind ividual basis as their names are non listed, that there are contact details for general enquires including, an address, fax play and email address.The purpose of the site is to provide development to the public nigh cervical cancer and its vaccine with info relating to cost, eligibility and where to attack it. It also provides information for people who are outside of England on how they can access information in their own health setting. Due to the authors names and qualifications non existence disclosed it is not possible to know if they are qualified to compose the information and if they have conducted any new(prenominal) forms of research related to this subject field of study.It is important to note the difference between the authors of the information in spite of appearance the site and a webmaster. An author of a website writes the information within the site that is use by the public. A webmaster is aPerson responsible for creating and maintaining a cosmopolit an website (Czar and Hebda, 2009, p. 539) they may also be termed as a website condition.The website was published by the NHS which is part of the Department of Health (D.O.H). This can be confirmed by checking the domain of the website which is .nhs.uk showing it is part of the NHS and a United Kingdom website. As the information within the site can be validated hind end to a reputable organisation such as the D.O.H this increases the authority of the information within the site (Czar and Hebda, 2009).There are contact names for the mentality of publishing and for the head of immunisation information, which are contrastive from the website designer, showing that the website designer is not supplying the information about the vaccine. Despite the authors and papers qualification not being displayed, the information itself must not be dismissed referable to lack of knowledge of where it was sourced from. It requires the nurse or client to evaluate the publisher of the informat ion to establish if the organisation is credible or not, hence whether to give the information or not.The goal of this website is to promote immunisation to help counter cervical cancer (NHS 2008). The site achieves this by providing the public and health apprehension professionals with information in order that the public will make an informed closing in favour of immunisation. The information within the site can be split into two parts, each of a different modular. The standards are different as they are intended for two different object audiences and there is a lack to use different terminology for each portion (Czar and Hebda, 2009). One section is targeted at the public, the separate is aimed at health care professionals.The information targeted at the public is presented in a manner that is wanton to read and understand. There is very little use of jargon and where medical terminology is apply it is explained. There are touch ons to other resources which may be more appropriate for parents such as a affiliation to the information library where parents can obtain more information. The link for teenagers consist of, a link to a social net forgeing site called Bebo which is popular with boyish teenagers. Here girls can comment on their experience with the vaccine and to maunder to others about their experience. There would be an issue as to how the information on this site was regulated, to hold back that the site is not being abused. An alternative link is to a site called HABBO, which is an online chat forum where girls can talk online, to other girls and to NHS advisers asking questions in relation to the vaccine.The information targeted at healthcare professionals differs in its content. It offers more information relating to training of staff with online power points and links to upcoming conferences. The information also details about the distribution of the vaccination, protocols associated with it and bring outable resources. Ofte n a problem associated with information on the internet is that it is cheaper to clear information of a scummy standard that looks good, not good tone of voice information of the same presentable standard (Coiera, 2003). However this site does not fit this statement and the information within it is of a good standard and well presented.The site has clearly stated that it aims to promote immunisationImmunisation the safest way to protect your child (NHS, 2008) this could present issues of bias. The site presents the information in a way that shows both side of the debate. The information does have a lean towards the positives of the vaccination, further this is not great enough to have all-inclusive to a marketing strategy which would show clear bias (McCormick and Saba, 2006). The site is sponsored by the D.O.H, which would be in favour of immunisation to prevent the education of cancer, as it would be more cost effective overall to immunize than to treat cancer. The sponsors hip by the D.O.H would indicate bias, though considering it is a health promotion website, to have a reputable organisation fund the site earlier than an alternative organisation without a reputation for quality information instils confidence.The website does not state when it was written, revised or re emplacemented (Czar and Hebda, 2009, p.124) however it was copyrighted in 2008, so it is reasonable to assume that the information within the site is relatively up to date. According to information on the website it is updated every week although, it lacks dates to confirm this so the currency of the information is questionable.The site contains links to other sources of information however these pages do not contain dates making it is impossible to know how current the information within them is. The links do not state if they have been updated, yet the information for healthcare professionals contains a link to a monthly newsletter published by the D.O.H. and to recent letters rel ating to the vaccine, all of which involve that the site is regularly updated. None of the information on the site relating to the HPV vaccination surfaces to be out of date irrelevant. Searching through the site, all the links take the user to their designated page and there do not appear to be any links that no longer function.There is energy to state that the links on the site have been evaluated, though the information within the links does complement the theme of the website. The site contains a florilegium of text and images. The images are mainly promotional and do not upset the client from the text. The text itself is simplistic and easy to understand and is not also complicated with scientific terminology. This is so that people of different levels of intellect and understanding will be able to use the information (Coiera, 2003).The information within the site and the documents which are available online do not contain references to other authors or sources of work. T he use of references allows the work from which the information was taken to be checked, (Czar and Hebda, 2009) and because there are no references it is not possible to know the quality of the original information, who the authors were and when the work was written. The lack of references reduces the credibility of the information within the site, though taking in to consideration that the site is published by the D.O.H, the information would have been checked before being placed into the public domain.The site it is compatible with many different forms of software which are used on a variety of computers. There are links on the site, which fall in to pages where it is possible to download the necessary browser software required to view the site. All the information is free and where required the client is able to print off hard copies of the information. The site is enabled to be viewed in different sizes depending on what is required. It is possible to obtain the information wi thin it in one of 19 other languages, however this will have to be originally sourced by someone who understands English, as it needs to be located from the site and printed.It can be argued that due to the sites lack of information relating to the authors or publishers qualifications and credentials, the information within the site has the potential to be inaccurate. Similarly the lack of references to other sources of work and with no dates being provided for the work could in addition strengthen this argument. Nevertheless, the site does contain information within it that is useful and appropriate for the different target audiences that the site is aimed at. More over the site is published by the D.O.H, condescension there being the potential for bias from this organisation it has a barter of care to the public to provide current and accurate information.The public has access to a large source of information through the internet which can be of noble or poor quality. As the n umber of high quality resources on the internet continue to rise, in turn will the number of poor quality sources. In the future the number of clients who have access to this information will increase as the population ages (Coiera, 2003). Nurses need to be aware of the need to critique the information found any by themselves or by the client and in turn help them to understand what they have found (McCormick and Saba, 2006) whilst encouraging them to evaluate the information for themselves. This is to ensure that clients do not put their health at risk through trusting inaccurate or unsafe information. Teaching clients how to evaluate information and where to find high quality information will ensure that poor quality sources are not mistaken for high quality and used by the client.On the whole the internet isA wonderful information delivery tool. However, it is just that a tool. Our ability to think, to ask the right questions, to interpret, integrate, and combine what we find is what leads to value and makes all the difference. (McCormick and Saba, 2006, p. 147)