Health Information Quality Evaluation of Prescription Medicines Internet Retail Platform in China Based on DISCERN-A Case Study of Paroxetine Hydrochloride

Objectives We aim to gather evidence to help improve Chinese internet retail platforms' practices regarding providing comprehensive and accurate health information on prescription medicines, and establish a baseline for enhancing the supervision of prescription medicines’ internet retail.

Methods This observational study investigates the quality of the health information provided by 34 key platforms operated in China that sell paroxetine online. Three trained master medical students independently used the DISCERN scale to perform the evaluation. We tested the scoring results’ consistency among evaluators and the evaluation’s reliability.

Results Of the 16 items on the DISCERN scale, the highest and lowest average scores were 4.09 and 1.24, respectively (average overall score of 40.48, SD=7.20). Of all platforms, 5 were excellent (14.71%), 8 were good (23.53%), 10 were fair (29.41%), and 11 were poor (32.35%). The key identified flaws included (1) inadequate provision of medication information, (2) absence of prescription validation and authentication, and (3) lack of professional pharmacy services.

Conclusions Obtaining accurate and effective health information on commonly used mental health prescription medicines sold online is difficult. The quality of health information presented on the platforms for medicines is low. Few platforms fully comply with the regulations for prescription validation and authentication, and professional pharmacy services are insufficient. A reliable regulatory approach is needed to ensure prescriptions’ appropriate validation and authentication, preferably via an electronic prescription transfer system. Introducing a list of banned prescription medicines with high risks for online retail, holding third-party platforms accountable, and enhancing the general supervision and regulation of e-commerce in the pharmaceutical retail context are important. Finally, fostering professional pharmacy capacities among all platforms to promote healthy business development is an urgent concern. In the absence of secured critical pharmacy services, considering slowing down online pharmacies’ expansion is necessary.

Keywords: quality; health information; internet retail; e-commerce; online; platform; prescription medicines; paroxetine hydrochloride; DISCERN