Skip to main content
Download PDF
Download ePub

Using medical university websites for health education about COVID-19; an effective solution for public education during a pandemic

Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition volume 42, Article number: 76 (2023) Cite this article

Abstract

Background

Medical universities use their websites to teach, research, and promote a culture of health. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the performance of medical universities in terms of health information and education regarding COVID-19 by surveying the website of Iranian medical universities.

Methods

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in June to August 2020 on the websites of medical universities in three categories of universities (type 1, type 2 and type 3). The information of this study was collected from medical universities located in the east, west, north, south and center of Iran. Data were collected according to a checklist. The checklist contained 3 sections; the first part with 8 components regarding general information of the university websites, the second part with 11 components regarding the information and news related to the coronavirus and the third part with 12 components regarding the content of personal health education and environmental health for the prevention of coronavirus. To determine the status of each website in the two areas of health information and education, websites were divided into three categories based on scores (poor, average and good). Data were analyzed by chi-square.

Results

In this study, 1118 web pages related to 48 Iranian universities of medical sciences were reviewed, where 19 were type 1 universities, 21 type 2 universities, and 8 type 3 universities. The mean scores of the websites regarding the information and news related to the coronavirus (8.54 ± 1.750) and the mean scores of the websites regarding the personal and environmental health education related to coronavirus (10.96 ± 1.148) were in a favorable and positive condition. The ranking of medical universities by type showed that the scores in the two areas of health information and education about the coronavirus were in good condition and none of the universities were in bad condition. Chi-square showed that the information status and news related to the coronavirus had a significantly positive relationship with the type of medical universities (χ2 = 10.343, p = 0.006).

Conclusions

The results of this study showed that type1 and type 2 and 62.5% of type 3 medical universities were in good condition in terms of total scores in the two areas of health information and education about coronavirus and none of the universities were in a bad situation. It is suggested that the website of medical universities can serve as a reliable and appropriate source of information not only for academics and students but also for the general public.

Background

Since December 2019, cases of severe respiratory infections have been reported in Wuhan, China, which were caused and termed the coronavirus or COVID-19 [1]. On January 4, 2020, the first death cases caused by coronavirus were reported in China.

Coronavirus positive cases were then rapidly reported from Thailand, Japan, South Korea and the United States throughout January 2020. Person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus and transmission to healthcare workers spread rapidly and caused a most devastating epidemy to mankind [2, 3]. The coronavirus was transmitted to Iran in 2019. Iran used all facilities such as health, scientific, research, and media facilities to prevent and control the coronavirus. During the outbreak of coronavirus in Iran, various audio and visual media provided news related to the coronavirus. The media sought to reduce public awareness of how to prevent coronavirus and stress. Among the various media, cyberspace and web pages were an important source for conveying health news and concepts to the public [4, 5]. Websites were designed to provide the information for researchers and to share information resources, knowledge and personal experiences [6]. Websites are a very complex type of information resources that are produced by different people and searched by different users [7]. An interested audience can use the websites of education and research, entertainment and recreation, economic and commercial development [8, 9].

Among the various websites, the websites of medical universities are thought to be of great importance as a reliable source to conveying health news and concepts to the public [10]. The websites of medical universities, like other websites, provide a structured collection of data that is displayed in the form of texts, graphic images, photos, videos, and audios to provide a variety of content and as a multimedia database, websites are considered as a suitable tool for introducing scientific, research, educational and therapeutic activities [11, 12].

Medical universities use their websites to teach, research, and promote a culture of health. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Iran, medical universities provided information and preventive training on the capacity of their websites in various sections, such as the hospitals website and the health deputy website [13, 14]. Since February 2019, when the outbreak of coronavirus in Iran was confirmed, the websites of medical universities were used as an information tool for professors, students and staff of medical universities. Some ordinary people in the community used the websites of Universities of Medical Sciences to find information about the prevalence of coronavirus in their city or province or to find suggestions for health education. The coronavirus provided a serious threat to the world and Iran, and according to experts, in autumn and winter there was the possibility of simultaneous outbreaks of influenza and coronavirus. For this reason the officials of medical universities were expected to pay more attention to the evaluation of university websites by identifying their strengths and weaknesses in an effort to provide news and educational contents about the coronavirus. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the performance of medical universities in terms of health information and education regarding COVID-19 by surveying the website of Iranian medical universities.

Methods

Study design and population

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in June to August 2020 on the websites of medical universities of Iran. The information of this study was collected from medical universities located in the east, west, north, south and center of Iran. In the present study, the websites of Iranian universities of medical sciences were divided into three categories (type 1, type 2 and type 3 universities). The ranking of medical universities was based on indicators such as research infrastructure, student research and ethics in medical research and indicators in the field of science production. Universities that were in good condition in terms of these indicators were ranked first (type 1), universities with average and poor status were ranked second (type 2) and third (type 3), respectively. There are 48 universities of medical sciences in Iran. For this research, we first entered the main page of the website of 48 universities. Then, for each university, we checked the website pages of the faculties, the website of the Vice Chancellor for Health and the website of the educational centers (hospitals) affiliated to each university. In total, 1118 websites from 48 universities of medical sciences were reviewed (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Flowchart of methodological approaches of the study

Full size image

Data collection techniques and procedures

Data were collected according to a checklist [15,16,17]. The checklist contained three sections: the first part with 8 components regarding general information of the university websites, the second part with 11 components regarding the information and news related to coronavirus and the third part with 12 components regarding the content of personal health education and environmental health for the prevention of coronavirus. The validity of the checklist was confirmed by the opinions of 2 information science experts and 3 health experts. To assess each of the components of the checklist, two researchers of this study referred to the website of medical universities, the website of the faculties, the website of the Vice Chancellor for Health and the website of the educational centers (hospitals) of each university and reviewing the different components. For the presence of component in the websites, a score of one and for the absence of the components in the websites, a score was zero. Likert scoring methods were used to respond to the checklists. For each sector, the scores below 49% were poor, 50% considered as average and over 51% were considered as good [18].

In the checklist for news and information about the coronavirus, the minimum and maximum scores of the websites were 0 to 11. Regarding the status of information and news of each website, the scores obtained were reported within three levels: below 3 (poor), 4 to 7 (medium) and 8 to 11 (good).

In the personal and environmental health education checklist, the minimum and maximum scores for each website were zero to 12. Regarding the status of the personal and environmental health education of each website, the scores obtained were reported at three levels: below 4 (poor), 5 to 8 (medium) and 9 to 12 (good).

The scores of the two sections of information and news, personal and environmental health education were zero to 23 for each of the websites. The scores obtained were reported for three levels: below 7 (poor), 8 to 15 (medium) and 16 to 23 (good).

Data analysis

Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 22, descriptive and analytical statistics. Relative frequency and percentage were used for data analysis in the descriptive statistics section, and chi-square test was used for statistical analysis. P < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

Results

In this study, 1118 web pages of 48 Iranian universities of medical sciences related to health departments, faculties and hospitals of Iranian universities of medical sciences. They belonged to type 1 universities [19], type two universities [21], and type three universities [8].

The mean scores of the websites regarding the information and news related to the coronavirus were in positive condition (8.54 ± 1.750). The highest percentage was related to component 6 (Ability to search for phrases related to the coronavirus). The highest mean scores were related to components 6,4 and 5 regarding the search for terms related to coronavirus. The lowest mean score was for component 2 (linking to WHO resources and subject databases for information on coronavirus) (Table 1).

Table 1 Scores of Iranian medical universities websites regarding information and news related to the coronavirus
Full size table

The mean scores of the websites regarding the personal and environmental health education related to the coronavirus were generally favorable and positive (10.96 ± 1.148). The highest mean scores were related to questions 3, 4, 8, 9 and 10 regarding education on personal hygiene such as using masks and gloves, disinfectants and social distancing. The lowest mean scores were related to question 7 (hygienic disposal of solid waste produced by coronavirus) and question 6 (food hygiene) (Table 2).

Table 2 Scores of Iranian medical university websites regarding personal and environmental health education related to the coronavirus
Full size table

Chi-square showed that the performance of Type1 and Type2 universities in terms of information and news on the coronavirus and personal and environmental health education was better than that of Type3 medical universities. Chi-square showed that the ability to search easily for coronavirus had a significant relationship with the type of medical universities (p = 0.046). Type1 universities of medical sciences were 100%, Type2 universities of medical sciences were 95.2% and Type3 universities of medical sciences were up to 75% capable of simple search for coronavirus. In 84.2% of the websites of Type 1 universities of medical sciences, in 95.2% of the websites of Type 2 universities of medical sciences, in 50% of the websites of Type 3 universities of medical sciences, the latest news of coronavirus has been published. Chi-square showed that significant relationship between coronavirus news and type of medical universities (p = 0.014). Chi-square showed that the publication of morbidity and mortality of coronavirus on the university website was significantly related to the type of medical universities (p = 0.056) (Table 3).

Table 3 Total scores of Iranian medical university websites regarding information and news and education on personal and environmental health about coronavirus
Full size table

The highest scores about information and news about coronavirus were related to type 2 universities (90.5%) and the lowest were related to type 3 universities (5.37%).The highest scores about personal and environmental health related to coronavirus were related to type 1 and 3 universities (100%) and the lowest were related to type 2 universities (90.5%) (Table 4).

Table 4 Ranking of websites of Iranian universities of medical sciences about information and news and education on personal and environmental health related to coronavirus
Full size table

100% of Type1 and Type2 universities and 62.5% of Type 3 medical universities were in good condition in terms of total scores in the two areas of health information and education about the coronavirus, and none of the universities were in bad condition. Chi-square results showed that there was a significant relationship between medical university type and classification of scores regarding the information and news related to the coronavirus (χ2 = 10.343, p = 0.006). (Table 4).

Discussion

In this study, the lowest mean score was for linking the university websites to the World Health Organization website for information on coronavirus. The highest mean score was related to the search for terms related to coronavirus on the websites of universities. The mean scores of websites regarding the information and news related to coronavirus were favorable and positive (8.54 ± 1.750). Therefore, based on the findings of the present study, scientific websites are a suitable tool for health education. In a study by Hamzehei et al. (2018), it was reported that reliable scientific websites such as health and medical websites can be used for health education about diseases[19]. In a study by Gill et al. (2013), showed that social media technologies and websites have the potential to deliver safe and effective health education[20]. In a study by Valizadeh-Haghi et al. (2021), showed that websites can be used for health education to prevent diseases, but their scientific content needs to be verified and validated[21]. The Ministry of Health must use all the information facilities, such as the website of the universities of medical sciences, to inform and publish the correct news about coronavirus among people. Linking the websites of medical universities to world-renowned websites such as the World Health Organization website can be a way to raise public awareness and create the right attitude towards the coronavirus. Therefore, it is suggested the main page of the website of Iranian universities of medical sciences should be linked to the WHO website and other reliable sources worldwide.

The mean scores of the websites regarding personal and environmental health education related to the coronavirus were favorable (10.96 ± 1.148). The highest mean scores were related to education about personal hygiene such as using masks and gloves, disinfectants and social distancing. The lowest mean scores were related to hygienic disposal of solid waste produced by coronavirus and food hygiene. In a study by Zarghani et al. (2017) with the aim of determining the services provided on the website of the central libraries of medical universities showed that 77.8% of the websites offered "library usage training" [22]. In recent years, the Internet and cyberspace have been used extensively in education and change of behavior related to information-gain and learning [23]. For example, a study conducted at Hong Kong University on online search for health information and internet usage patterns reported that the main health information used by users was in the four areas of health, treatment, family health and issues that are difficult to talk about. The results from the University of Hong Kong showed that those who frequently use the internet and websites for health information are more likely to use websites for day-to-day decisions [24]. The results of this part of our study indicate that the use of cyberspace and websites have benefits such as increasing awareness without having to leave home in the prevalence of coronavirus, easy access to information, high speed of information dissemination, access to information at low cost. It should be noted that the use of fake websites to obtain information related to disease and health can lead to harm to physical and mental health. Therefore, reputable websites such as the websites of medical universities and reputable medical science journals should be introduced to users.

Type1 and Type2 universities (100%) and Type3 (62.5%) of medical universities showed good conditions in terms of total scores in the two areas of health information and education about the coronavirus, and none of the universities were in bad conditions. In a study by Hamidi et al. (2016) with the aim of evaluating the websites of Iranian universities of medical sciences in terms of attention to content and technical characteristics showed that type one and type two universities were better and type three universities had the lowest levels of compliance [6]. Shabankareh et al. (2016) reported that the medical universities in type three should pay attention to the production of content [25]. The results of this part of the study in line with other studies indicate the unfavorable situation of type three universities. The inadequacy of the situation of Type 3 universities in the two areas of health information and education about the coronavirus can be explained with the limited facilities of Type3 universities of medical sciences compared to Type1 and Type2 universities. Therefore, authorities should pay attention to Type3 universities of medical sciences, which are tertiary universities and are located in deprived areas of the country.

Conclusion

The results of this study showed that type1, type2 and 62.5% of type3 medical universities were in good conditions in terms of total scores in the two areas of health information and education about coronavirus and none of the universities was actually in an unacceptable situation. The use of cyberspace and websites have benefits such as increased awareness without having to leave home in the prevalence of coronavirus. Other benefits include easy information access, increasing attention and usefulness of information, high speed of information dissemination, access to information at low cost. Therefore, it is suggested that the website of medical universities should be introduced as a reliable and appropriate source to the general public.

According to the results of the evaluation of websites, it is suggested:

  • To maintain a permanent page for health education on infectious diseases such as the coronavirus that shall be available from the main website of medical universities.

  • Web-based databases should be created for information about academic and research resources related to coronavirus available for a wide public.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

COVID-19:

Coronavirus disease 2019

SPSS:

Statistical package for social science

References

  1. Zhu H, Wei L, Niu P. The novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. China Glob Health Res Policy. 2020;5:6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Singhal T. A review of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Indian J Pediatr. 2020;87(4):281–6.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Guo YR, Cao QD, Hong ZS, et al. The origin, transmission and clinical therapies on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak—an update on the status. Mil Med Res. 2020;7(1):11.

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Sedghi S, Tafaroji R, Roudbari M. A survey of the websites of medical universities in Iran: a webometrics study. J Health Admin. 2019;15(50):85–95.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Koosha K. The relationship between web links to Iranian university web sites and their scholarly publishing Indicator: exploring motivations for creation of academic links. Library Inf Sci. 2006;9(2):35–52.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Hamidi A, Shabankareh K, Tahmasebi R. Evaluation of Iranian Medical Universities’ websites based on content and technical features effecting on promotion of webometric rank. J Acad Librarianship Inf Res. 2016;49(4):439–76.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Farhadi A, Amiri MR, Karami S, Safipour AA. Evaluation of schools’ websites of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences based on webometrics criteria in 2014. PSJ. 2015;13(3):31–9.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Abdellahi M, Farhadi I, Hassanzadeh D. Webometric study of Iranian virtual universities in 2013. J Scientomet. 2015;1(2):85–98.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Zahedi Sh. A comparative study of the five large universities’ websites in Iran. J Inf Technol Manag. 2011;3(6):21–44.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Haji Zeinolabedini M, Osareh F. Webometrics: principles & basics. Natl Stud Librarianship Inform Org. 2007;18(3):189–212.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Raeesi S, Darabi M. Quality assessment of Ilam University of Medical Sciences Website from the users’ viewpoints according to WebQual model. SJIMU. 2018;26(4):53–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Yaminfirooz M, Riahi A, Babaei M. Comparison of webometrics indicators of Northern Universities of Medical Sciences. CJS. 2015;2(2):7–15.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Rezaei H, Haghdoost A, Javar HA, et al. The effect of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on medical sciences education in Iran. J Educ Health Promot. 2021;10:136. https://doi.org/10.4103/jehp.jehp_817_20.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Hayat AA, Keshavarzi MH, Zare S, et al. Challenges and opportunities from the COVID-19 pandemic in medical education: a qualitative study. BMC Med Educ. 2021;21:247. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02682-z.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Tirgar A, Sajjadi SA, Aghalari Z. The status of international collaborations in compilation of Iranian scientific articles on environmental health engineering. Global Health. 2019;15:17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-019-0460-3.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  16. Aghalari Z, Dahms H, Sillanpää M, et al. Effectiveness of wastewater treatment systems in removing microbial agents: a systematic review. Global Health. 2020;16:13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-0546-y.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  17. Tirgar A, Aghalari Z, Sillanpää M, et al. A glance at one decade of water pollution research in Iranian environmental health journals. Food Contam. 2020;7:2. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40550-020-00080-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Brown s. Likert Scale Examples for Surveys. https://www.extension.iastate.edu/documents/anr/likertscaleexamplesforsurveys.pdf

  19. Hamzehei R, Ansari M, Rahmatizadeh S, Valizadeh-Haghi S. Websites as a tool for public health education: determining the trustworthiness of health websites on Ebola disease. Online J Public Health Inform. 2018;10(3):e221. https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v10i3.9544.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Gill HK, Gill N, Young SD. Online technologies for health information and education: a literature review. J Consum Health Internet. 2013;17(2):139–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/15398285.2013.780542.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  21. Valizadeh-Haghi S, Rahmatizadeh S, Soleimaninejad A, Mousavi Shirazi SF, Mollaei P. Are health websites credible enough for elderly self-education in the most prevalent elderly diseases? BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2021;21(1):31. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-021-01397-x.PMID:33509183;PMCID:PMC7842013.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  22. Zarghani M, Mohaqqeq N, Alibeik MR, Sadeqi T, Mohebbi S, Kosari R. Services provided on the Websites of Central Libraries at Universities of Medical Sciences in Iran. Payavard. 2017;11(2):134–41.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Wakefield MA, Loken B, Hornik RC. Use of mass media campaigns to change health behaviour. Lancet. 2010;376:1261–71.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  24. Leung L. Internet embeddedness: links with online health information seeking, expectancy value/quality of health information websites, and Internet usage patterns. CyberPsychol Behav. 2008;11:565–9.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Shabankareh K, Tahmasebi R, Hamidi A. Content and technical evaluation of Type III Iranian medical universities’ websites. Iran South Med J. 2016;19(2):267–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Vice-Chancellor of Research and Technology in Babol University of Medical Sciences for financial support (Project No. 9910013).

Funding

This research benefited from the support of the Deputy of Research and Technology of the Babol University of Medical Sciences.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, North China University of Science and Technology Affiliated Hospital, Tangshan, 063000, Hebei, China

    Lina Cai

  2. School of Management, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan, 063000, Hebei, China

    Jiwei Han

  3. Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, I.R. of Iran

    Zahra Aghalari

  4. Department of Biomedical Science and Environmental Biology, College of Life Science, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, ROC

    Hans-Uwe Dahms‬

  5. Research Center for Environmental Medicine, KMU - Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, 80708, Taiwan, ROC

    Hans-Uwe Dahms‬

Authors
  1. Lina Cai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jiwei Han
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Zahra Aghalari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Hans-Uwe Dahms‬
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

ZA, HUD, LC and JH designed the study, made final decisions on the inclusion of journal articles and extracted data from them, and wrote and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jiwei Han or Zahra Aghalari.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was approved and registered by the Code of Ethics (IR.MUBABOL.HRI.REC.1399.100).

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Cai, L., Han, J., Aghalari, Z. et al. Using medical university websites for health education about COVID-19; an effective solution for public education during a pandemic. J Health Popul Nutr 42, 76 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-023-00417-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-023-00417-y

Keywords

Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition

ISSN: 2072-1315

Contact us