6 Effective Ways to Validate Medical Blogs
With the constant challenges that everyone faces, it is necessary to prioritize health, especially during the pandemic. While people are limiting their travels to keep their family members safe, it is important to stay healthy and knowledgeable on your welfare. There are many ways to learn about staying healthy, and one of them is by utilizing the internet.
Usually, you can easily find a medical blog, which is an online platform that provides different medical information that any person will find useful. Whether it is for your health or for another person, you can never go wrong with reading blogs about everything medical-related because they might even save your life at some point.
In an article issued by the National Institute of Aging in 2018, online health information availability is becoming a trend. These medical blogs can help provide health information to anyone who needs them as quickly as possible. Aside from that, people can also gain information through social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, commonly used by health professionals nowadays.
However, not all information is scientifically sound. There are still individuals who try to provide false information to people that could potentially deteriorate their health even more, and that should never happen. Fortunately, this article will help you find several ways to determine if the information you read online is true or not.
6 Effective Ways to Validate Medical Blogs
Check the Sponsors of the Website
By confirming the URL, people can immediately recognize if a medical blog is professionally funded and published. Websites ending with “.gov” are used by government agencies; “.edu” by an educational institution, while “.org” is usually used by non-profit organizations, “.com” are often used by hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.
Check the Authors
Sometimes the medical blogs may not contain the author’s details. Instead, the institution or the hospital’s address and contact numbers will be written at the end of the website. People can easily contact them using the provided number.
Check When the Article Was Published
Readers should keep themselves updated. Recent medical studies are usually more credible than outdated ones. Usually, the authors would place the date below the blog title.
Check the Purpose of the Website
Medical blogs technically provide relief and solutions to a person with medical concerns. An effective medical blog encourages readers to be practical in solving their medical problems. Also, you should know that some websites are intended for selling products, and as a reader, you have to know its difference.
Check if There Are Medical Apps Available
One platform on which you can contact a medical professional is through a mobile phone application. If a governing institution has no app, you can still talk with them by using the chat box that appears on your smartphone or your computer screen’s lower right corner when you visit their website. Also, you can ask questions through their customer service hotline.
Check Your Schedule and Set an Appointment
Reading medical blogs allows you to talk with a health professional via an online consultation. Once your medical background results appear to be an immediate concern, your doctors will check everything out for further analysis.
With the constant technological advancements, people would usually rely on the information being provided through the internet. It is important to double or triple check if a website or a medical blog has full credibility and provides helpful and truthful guides for your medical concerns.
