IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jpubli/v13y2025i2p23-d1648045.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluation of Content Quality of Online Health Information by Global Quality Score: A Case Study of Researchers Misnaming It and Citing Secondary Sources

Author

Listed:
  • Andy Wai Kan Yeung

    (Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Applied Oral Sciences and Community Dental Care, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China)

Abstract

The Global Quality Score (GQS) is one of the most frequently used tools to evaluate the content quality of online health information. To the author’s knowledge, it is frequently misnamed as the Global Quality Scale, and occasionally secondary sources are cited as the original source of the tool. This work aimed to reveal the current situation especially regarding the citations among published studies. Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed were queried to identify papers that mentioned the use of the GQS. Among a total of 411 analyzed papers, 45.0% misnamed it as Global Quality Scale, and 46.5% did not cite the primary source published in 2007 to credit it as the original source. Another 80 references were also cited from time to time as the source of the GQS, led by a secondary source published in 2012. There was a decreasing trend in citing the primary source when using the GQS. Among the 12 papers that claimed that the GQS was validated, half of them cited the primary source to justify the claim, but in fact the original publication did not mention anything about its validation. To conclude, future studies should name and cite the GQS properly to minimize confusion.

Suggested Citation

  • Andy Wai Kan Yeung, 2025. "Evaluation of Content Quality of Online Health Information by Global Quality Score: A Case Study of Researchers Misnaming It and Citing Secondary Sources," Publications, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-10, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:13:y:2025:i:2:p:23-:d:1648045
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/13/2/23/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/13/2/23/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:13:y:2025:i:2:p:23-:d:1648045. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.