An Evaluation of Persian Diabetes Websites based on WebMedQual (2016)

The growing rate of medical information on the Internet and its effect on community health has necessitated the evaluation and validation of health websites. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of Persian diabetes websites, based on the WebMedQual scale, as one of the modern and comprehensive health website evaluation methods. The research population comprised of all Persian Diabetes Websites (12 websites) which were retrieved using the keyword diabetes in Persian language, in the search engines of Google, Yahoo and Bing. The WebMedQual checklist, containing 83 questions, was used to collect data. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, using SPSS. Regarding the three indexes: information content, design and links, Persian Diabetes Websites obtained about 50% of WebMedQual scores and were generally at a moderate level. They obtained less than average, regarding other scores, including: credit resources, accessibility and usability, privacy and user support. The "Gabric Diabetes Education Association" website, with 75.9% of the necessity scores, achieved the first rank among Persian diabetes websites. It is recommended that the producers and designers of Persian diabetes websites consider the strength and weaknesses of websites for improving their quality. Health custodians could contribute to community health by introducing reputable websites to the users.