Digital Health Journal publishes an article on the quality of information shared in the Med.Over.Net online health community

Members of the Centre for Methodology and Informatics (Dr. Gregor Petrič, Dr. Marjan Cugmas and Dr. Sara Atanasova), in collaboration with the Institute of Oncology, have published the findings of a study on the quality of cancer information shared among users of the online health community Med.Over.Net. Based on more than three million messages, machine learning was used to detect cancer messages. A sample of 403 messages was then assessed for quality by doctors specialising in cancer. To this end, the researchers developed an innovative instrument to assess the objective quality of social support information in the OHC. The results show that message quality is particularly problematic in so-called social forums, whereas deliberative forums show high levels of accuracy, confidentiality, relevance and argumentation. The article "The quality of informational social support in online health communities: A content analysis of cancer-related discussions" is freely available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20552076231155681