The staffs’ understanding of the role of the health department website on health education in a university of medical sciences

Background Health related organizations have sought to design websites to provide various services, including access to relevant information by health care providers. Aims The purpose of this study was to investigate the understanding of health care staff members of the role of the health sector website of Semnan University of Medical Sciences in their health education. Methods This cross –sectional study was performed on 369 employees of health care institutions affiliated to Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. An anonymous selfadministered questionnaire was developed. Results Mean score of the employees’ attitudes towards total characteristics of the health website were understanding of concepts of the health website was 3.65, for communications in the health website was 3.27 and for patientcentered of health website was 3.55. The results showed that there were significant relationships among total characteristics of the health website (P<0.001). Conclusion One can infer that the University's health department website is not proportionate to most of its domestic clients and could not provide the information needs of the healthcare staff. Therefore, practical and methodological considerations in the design of the website of the health department should be taken into consideration in order to provide user-oriented information on the website.