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Proceedings of the AMIA Symposium logoLink to Proceedings of the AMIA Symposium
. 1999:775–779.

A critical appraisal of the use of Internet for calculating cardiovascular risk.

P Gillois 1, I Colombet 1, H Dréau 1, P Degoulet 1, G Chatellier 1
PMCID: PMC2232666  PMID: 10566465

Abstract

This paper aims to retrieve and evaluate the quality of the Internet sites providing information on cardiovascular risk. We searched web pages related to risk prediction using six search engines. Sites proposing a cardiovascular risk prediction were selected for evaluation. The quality of each site was checked against criteria testing the validity, type and potential usefulness of information for physicians or patients. Search engines retrieved about 50 10(6) web pages. Eight sites were included. Only 2 of them provided calculation of cardiovascular risk based on Framingham equation. The others proposed algorithms, guidelines, or general information on cardiovascular health. Most sites lacked details to ensure quality of information. Present search engines are inefficient to retrieve precise and valid information. Facing the inflation of medical information, a systematic approach to validate the quality of a site is mandatory. Application of Evidence Based Medicine concepts gives a solution for evaluation of internet-based medical information.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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