A poster that analyses the accuracy of Wikipedia as a source of evidences for health care students. First presented at the 2011NETworking for Education in Healthcare conference in Cambridge

1. Wikipedia as an evidence
source for Nursing and
Health Care Students
Carol Haigh, Professor of Nursing Manchester Metropolitan University
Key words: Technology, evaluation, evidence, internet
Results
Entries 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
Background Cochrane Collaboration reviews. Amongst such reputable source
Students frequently cited search engines such as Google and journals were the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJoM),
information sites such as Wikipedia as the first places they Nature, The Journal of the American Medical Association
look when seeking information for an assignment. Although (JAMA), and Archives of Internal Medicine – all high impact
a number of disciplines have accepted that Wikipedia can be and quality publications. Figure 1 shows the reputable/
viewed as an accurate and legitimate evidence source nurse uncategorised references for each of the topics considered.
educators tend to view Wikipedia with a degree of suspicion.
Aim
The 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.
Methods
Wikipedia 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 Conclusion
sample consisted of the entries for the Skeletal system, the
The quality of the evidence taken from the 2500 plus references
Renal system, Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), Fever (pyrexia) and
over 50 Wikipedia pages was of sufficiently sound quality to
Pain. Citation tracking for the selected Wikipedia entries were
suggest that, for health related entries, they were appropriate
carried out and the subsequent sources (n=132) were assessed
for use by nursing students.
using the typology developed by the British Department of
Health. 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.