Wikipedia as an evidence source for Nursing and Health Care StudentsCarol Haigh, Professor of Nursing Manchester Metropolitan University Key words: Technology, evaluation, evidence, internet

BackgroundStudents frequently cited search engines such as Google and information sites such as Wikipedia as the first places they look when seeking information for an assignment. Although a number of disciplines have accepted that Wikipedia can be viewed as an accurate and legitimate evidence source nurse educators tend to view Wikipedia with a degree of suspicion.

AimThe purpose of this poster is to present an exploratory study of health and health related content on a sample of Wikipedia site with the overall intention of assessing the quality of their source and supporting information.

MethodsWikipedia has 115 pages in the category ‘health’, and 417 pages in the category ‘signs and symptoms’ category (although this also includes pages relating to anatomy and physiology). This gave a potential sample of 532 relevant pages. A 10% sample (n=50) was selected and a total of 2598 references assessed.

A 10% sub sample (n=5) was selected for further analysis. This sample consisted of the entries for the Skeletal system, the Renal system, Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), Fever (pyrexia) and Pain. Citation tracking for the selected Wikipedia entries were carried out and the subsequent sources (n=132) were assessed using the typology developed by the British Department of Health.

ResultsEntries for recognised disorders tended to have the most supporting references for example, Cancer (94) Alzheimer’s disease (231) or Hypertension (220). Entries for physiological processes tended to have the least supporting references, for example Krebs cycle (12), Insulin (21) or acetylcholine (8). A total of 2598 references were assessed. The mean number of supporting references was M = 52 and 20 (40%) of the 50 entries had 50 references or above.

Entries were also analysed for the percentage of references clearly identifiable as being from ‘reputable’ sources. For the purposes of this study ‘reputable source’ was defined as peer reviewed journals, World Health Organisation studies and Cochrane Collaboration reviews. Amongst such reputable source journals were the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJoM), Nature, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and Archives of Internal Medicine – all high impact and quality publications. Figure 1 shows the reputable/uncategorised references for each of the topics considered.

ConclusionThe quality of the evidence taken from the 2500 plus references over 50 Wikipedia pages was of sufficiently sound quality to suggest that, for health related entries, they were appropriate for use by nursing students.

The use of high impact specialist citations such as JAMA, The journal of Medical Genetics and Nature indicate that the people contributing to health related Wikipedia entries are at the least well read and at the best familiar with the key journals and topics of their own discipline. Furthermore, it suggests that Wikipedia may have uses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as an information source for student nurses and as a crude but effective instrument for use by postgraduate students undertaking preliminary literature searching or citation tracking.