Patient Guide to the Internet: What is a Heart Attack - Essay Example

"Patient Guide to the Internet: What is a Heart Attack?" is an excellent example of a paper on the cardiovascular system.
55-year-old Maria came to me for routine investigations and general health check-ups for a heart attack. While talking to her, she casually mentioned that she sought most of the information from the internet. She however expressed that she was unsure if all the information displayed on the webpages was true. She said: “There is a lot of information on the internet. However, it is unclear to me as to whether all that information is true and, while following guidelines, I am not sure which website to believe and which not to. Can you help me with that?”

I replied: “It is good that you are concerned about the accuracy of information present on web pages. Many patients get lured by wrong information presented for commercial purposes. By following simple steps, it is useful to retrieve accurate and reliable information. Please follow the instructions guide sheet to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of information presented on any web page.”

Instructions Guide

Internet is a very important source of information. It is available all the time and the information is presented in patient-friendly formats (Anderson and Klemm, 2008). Due to easy accessibility, many patients resort to the internet for information about their diseases. However, not all the information provided through the internet is appropriate and correct, and a patient who is unaware of this might be guided by wrong information. Thus, everyone accessing information must be able to ascertain the validity and credibility of the source of information in order to gain information that is latest, appropriate, and correct (Hoss and Hansen, 2008). In this essay, education and guidance as to how to evaluate a source of information on the internet will be elaborated through examples.

A heart attack is a commonly encountered medical condition and patients may want to procure information about it. The most commonly used search engines are "Google" and "Yahoo". Typing the words "Heart attack" retrieves several thousands of articles. One of the articles is "What is a Heart Attack?" at <http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/HeartAttack/HeartAttack_WhatIs.html> The evaluation of this health information website can be done as follows:

Accuracy of web documents

The page was written by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a wing of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Sciences. The purpose of the document is to educate patients and health professionals about heart attacks. The Institute is qualified to write about this topic. Contact information is available on the web page. Thus it can be said that the information is accurate.

Authority of web documents

The documents were published by a government agency. Thus, the source is credible.

The objectivity of web documents

The main objectivity of the web page is the dissipation of the right information and not an advertisement. The information is provided in detail. Thus the objectives of the web page are non-commercial.

The currency of web documents

The document was updated in November 2008. There are no dead links on the page and the information is not outdated. Thus the information is the latest.

Coverage of web documents

The links complement the theme of the documents. But there is no citation of information. The page view is for free. Thus it is easy to view the document.

From the above five mentioned points, it can be said that the information provided to the selected web page is of value and information provided that is appropriate, current, and useful.

There is another article on the web providing information on heart attacks. The webpage is <http://www.emedicinehealth.com/heart_attack/article_em.htm>. The article is "Heart attack." Evaluation of this web document reveals that the authors of the content are known and they are qualified to write this article, there is appropriate contact information on the page and the credibility of the source is available. The information is presented in detail and references are cited. All links provided on the site are active and the information update is available. Though there are advertisements on the web page, the intention of the webpage is to provide information to both patients and health professionals about various aspects of a heart attack. Thus it can be said that this web page is also a reliable source of information for heat attacks.