Abstract:

Purpose: Readability refers to the reading difficulty level of a text. Readability can be calculated quantitatively and objectively with various mathematical formulas. The concept of information quality refers to standard and verifiable information. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality and readability of online information on occupational therapy on Turkish websites. Material and Methods: A descriptive study was conducted on the term ‘ergoterapi’ on the Google search engine. 35 web pages were included in the study and the quality of the web pages was evaluated according to the principles of the Health Code on the Internet (HONcode). Readability was evaluated by Ateşman Readability Index and Çetinkaya Readability Index. Results: None of the web pages were HONcode certified. The mean HONcode score was 5.40 ± 1.95. Ateşman Readability Index average of the web pages was 38.85±14.84. and Çetinkaya Readability Index average was 25.67±7.29. Conclusion: The findings show that the quality of the web pages is low and their readability indexes require a high education level. Based on its findings, our study could serve to improve website design related to occupational therapy and provide a basis for developing an automated assessment approach of improvement of website quality.

Keywords: