Useful resources:

• Informed Health Choices: https://www.informedhealthchoices.org/

Provides a framework for developing and evaluating resources to help people learn to think critically about treatment claims.

• iHealthFacts: https://ihealthfacts.ie/

iHealthFacts is a resource where the public can quickly and easily check the reliability of a health claim circulated by social media. We hope this information will help people think critically about health claims and make well-informed choices.

• Be Media Smart: https://www.bemediasmart.ie/

The ‘Be Media Smart’ campaign was developed by members of Media Literacy Ireland to help people tell the difference between reliable and accurate information and deliberately false or misleading information. It asks people to stop (judge whether the information is accurate and reliable), think (about what the information is for) and check (where your information is coming from, ie. the source). 

• SPAT: https://www.spat.pitt.edu/

SPAT is a research-tested mnemonic tool developed in 2008 by the University of Pittsburgh for evaluating the reliability of health-related web pages. The mnemonic stands for: site, publisher, audience and timeliness. 

• DISCERN: https://www.discern.org.uk/

DISCERN is a brief questionnaire that enables patients and information providers to judge the quality of written information about treatment choices.