Patient empowerment and quality of online health information

This paper analyzes the concept of patient empowerment in the era of Web 2.0 and the related activities of empowered patients in online communication. In this context, the use of the Internet offers some advantages but also disadvantages. In fact, the quality of online health information is often indeterminate and inaccurate; consequently patients are not always able to distinguish between credible sources and un-reviewed sources of unknown credibility. This study offers an overview of activities and new policy recommendations in terms of quality, reliability and transparency of online health communication