Heart failure is a chronic debilitating condition affecting many people globally. It is among the leading causes of mortality globally. According to CDC, about 6.2 million people had heart failure in 2018 ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020) . In the same year, it led to close to 400, 000 deaths in U.S ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020) . As it can be seen heart failure is a life threatening condition that should be treated with a lot of caution to ensure good outcome. Therefore, it is important that only the proven methods of treatment which comprise evidence based practices should be applied in the treatment of heart failure to ensure positive outcomes and avert mortality. In the case of heart failure, evidence-based approaches could be employed in prescription of drugs, nursing care and in lifestyle modification.
Criteria for Assessing Credibility of Website sources
Website sources used to complete scholarly essays may be assessed by checking presented data’s timeliness, authority, audience, relevance, and perspective. Information from website sources can prove credibility through adherence to the factors highlighted above as expressed below:
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Timeliness
The information provided by the website source’s author must be recent. Dates of publishing the data should be indicated alongside the author’s full names, to ensure timeliness of the website source.
Authority
The data on website sources must originate from expert authors with capacity to sufficiently and accurately analyze and present information concerning the selected topic. The author’s academic levels and institution affiliations must also be indicated to certify the credibility of the website source.
Audience
The website information must be clear enough to indicate the type of audience the material is meant for. Technical terms used for a specific scientific topic, such as cardiovascular, myocardial, and arterial pressure may be used in a website source discussing heart failure to show that information written can only be consumed by academicians.
Relevance
The data printed in website sources must be relevant, easy to conceptualize, and well-connected to the thesis statement. A reader must be able to connect the data provided on the website source with their study topic, besides accessing sufficient data to complete assigned scientific report assignments.
Perspective
Credible data from website sources must not contain any information bias. The author must manifest argumentativeness of data to aid in completing future researches.
Criteria for Assessing Credibility of Journal Articles
The credibility of journal articles may be analyzed using variant criteria, such as analysis of citations used, references, authors’ expertise, peer-review indicators, and information relevance to the research topic.
Diversity of information
A credible journal source must have citations or footnotes from different sources as a means to avoid over representativeness of information. The use of diverse sources to complete journal article shows that the authors deviated from perception bias and instead embraced “democracy”, which is the essence of a quality journal source ( Ahmad & Jan, 2019) . Furthermore, journal article authors tend to enhance the accuracy of their information if they use diverse sources to write their reports before submission to peer-review boards and the public.
Publishing
The quality of journal articles may be assessed by ascertaining the prestige of publishing houses engaged in writing the report. The common perception from readers is that renowned publishing organizations tend to be strict on information quality, relevance, reliability, and overall credibility. Therefore, a journal published by a famous publishing center may be deemed credible, other factors such as referencing and citations remaining constant.
Use of References and Citations
Most researchers base their journal content on previously studied and documented literature to affirm or refute their hypothesis, or to create a scientific publication that can be used by posterity for future reference. Moreover, proof of using sources from previously written literature helps the researcher avoid studying topics that have already been explored and documented ( Ahmad & Jan, 2019) . Therefore, a quality journal article must have several citations and references as indication that the author conducted thorough research before completing a scientific report.
Peer review
A credible journal article must be peer-reviewed by a board of professionals in the article’s research topic. Peer-reviewed articles are deemed to be of quality because analysts who perfect its content perform their duties from loyalty to the scientific and academic community. Thus, information from a well-assessed journal article by expert academicians can easily be trusted.
Author Credentials
The journal article’s credentials is perceived as a gold standard in the scientific sector because it proves that the writer has sufficient expertise to report an academic issue. Nevertheless, authors do not have to bear higher degrees or be affiliated to academic institutions, although the latter factors can be a strengthening factor to the credibility of the journal article. Therefore, a journal article must have an expert author for it to be termed as credible and worthy to use for research purposes.
Analysis of Journal Articles Used to Assess Heart Failure
Source 1: Inamdar, A. A., & Inamdar, A. C. (2016). Heart Failure: Diagnosis, Management and Utilization. Journal of Clinical Medicine , 6 (62), 1-28. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4961993/pdf/jcm-05-00062.pdf
The journal article is credible because it contains seventy five citations and reference sources of previously researched literature on heart failure. The sources are accurately references, and the authors’ expertise in their fields of study is well-indicated at the top of the journal article. The data provided is peer-reviewed, and the parent journal, journal of clinical medicine, has been well-cited as proof that the report is fit for public consumption. Technical terms, such as heart failure, biomarkers, and readmission used by the authors indicate that the journal is customized for a specified audience, which increases the credibility of the source.
Source 2 : Hassan, M., Ibrahim, H. S., & Ellahham, S. (2019). Frailty in myocardial infarction patients: A paradigm shift. Cardiovascular Pharmacology: Open Access , 08 (03). https://doi.org/10.35248/2329-6607.19.8.254
The journal article is credible because it has citations and references as proof that the information discussed is not biased. Further, the authors are experts in heart failure analysis, as proved by the indications of their institutional affiliations. Even though the article does not cite its parent source to strengthen its credibility, the well-referenced technical data used by the authors, such as myocardial, coronary vascular disease, vital signs, dialysis, and organ systems authenticate the journal source.
Source 3 : Edelmann, F., Knosalla, C., Mörike, K., Muth, C., Prien, P., & Störk, S. (2018). Clinical practice guideline: chronic heart failure. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.2018.0124
The journal article, although short, is a credible source because it is peer-reviewed, and contains citations of used literature. Additionally, the authors are experts who have the authority to discuss heart failure, as evidenced by indications of their fields of expertise at the top of the journal article and use of technical terms, such as disease management guidelines, diuretics, polypharmacy, and beta receptor blockers.
Source 4 : Rossigno, P., Hernandez, A. F., Solomon, S. D., & Zannad, F. (2019). Heart failure drug treatment. Science Direct , 393 , 1034-1044. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31808-7
The journal article is a credible source because it contains citations which discredit the use of any bias and references as proof of the cited sources genesis. Additionally, the authors are experts in their fields of study , the article is peer-reviewed, and has been sourced from a renowned publishing house, Science Direct, which only accepts well-vetted quality journal sources. Besides, the article uses technical terms associated with heart failure, such as vascular dysfunction, biomarker profiles, and blood pressure.
Source 5 : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, September 9). Heart failure . https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/heart_failure.htm#:~:text=About%206.2%20million%20adults%20in%20the%20United%20States%20have%20heart%20failure
The website source is credible because it contains relevant information on heart failure with well-researched statistics. Additionally, the data is timely as indicated that it was last reviewed on September 8, 2020, and information used is well-referenced and cited. The data has been sourced from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Promotion, which embeds its credibility.
Conclusion
It is important for physicians and nurses dealing with heart failure patients to have a good understanding of the criteria used to assess a journal article or a website for credibility so that they can be sure that the information that they are using is credible and evidence based. This way, they can avoid consuming unverified information and applying it in the management of their heart failure patients which would result in poor prognosis for their patients.
References
Ahmad, M., & Jan, M. A. (2019). Evaluating Research: Diversity and Credibility of Information Sources. Research Gate , 353-368. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331564426_Evaluating_Research_Diversity_and_Credibility_of_Information_Sources
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, September 9). Heart failure . https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/heart_failure.htm#:~:text=About%206.2%20million%20adults%20in%20the%20United%20States%20have%20heart%20failure
Edelmann, F., Knosalla, C., Mörike, K., Muth, C., Prien, P., & Störk, S. (2018). Clinical practice guideline: chronic heart failure. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.2018.0124
Hassan, M., Ibrahim, H. S., & Ellahham, S. (2019). Frailty in myocardial infarction patients: A paradigm shift. Cardiovascular Pharmacology: Open Access , 08 (03). https://doi.org/10.35248/2329-6607.19.8.254
Inamdar, A. A., & Inamdar, A. C. (2016). Heart Failure: Diagnosis, Management and Utilization. Journal of Clinical Medicine , 6 (62), 1-28. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4961993/pdf/jcm-05-00062.pdf
Rossigno, P., Hernandez, A. F., Solomon, S. D., & Zannad, F. (2019). Heart failure drug treatment. Science Direct , 393 , 1034-1044. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31808-7
