Patients are becoming technologically savvy. The use of the Smartphone has made accessing information as simple as tapping on a downloaded application. For this discussion, please select a disease or condition and research online support groups and websites or applications you would recommend for patient education. Consider the information provided by USA.gov related to evaluating health information on the Internet (https://ods.od.nih.gov/Health_Information/How_To_Evaluate_Health_Information_on_the_Internet_Questions_and_Answers.aspxLinks to an external site.)

Please respond to each of the following prompts:

  1. Choose 3 sites or applications (one must be a support group) and explain what the critical components are that you used to evaluate them.
  2. Explain from a nursing perspective the benefits of each site and also what improvements are needed.
  3. How do these sites or applications (one of which is a support group) support diverse and hard-to-reach populations?