Given the increase in global ageing population, popularity of
social Q&A sites and the level of geriatric health concerns
from family caregivers, it raises the uncertainty about the
quality of health information on community Q&A sites for
family caregivers of elderly. The purpose of this study is to
evaluate the quality of geriatric health information on social
Questions and Answers (Q&A) sites: Yahoo! Answers from
registered nurses’ perspective. A total of 60
question-and-answer sets are retrieved from regional Yahoo!
Answers sites, including Australia, Canada, UK & Ireland,
US, Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan. A total of 126 English
answers and 112 Chinese answers were examined by registered
nurses and library professionals. Results show that the overall
information quality provided in the Chinese group is relatively
poorer than those of English especially in data quality
dimensions such as Verifiability, Commercialisation and
Completeness. Questioners form both the English and Chinese
groups might possibly miss the best pieces of information and
advices regarding the health concerns of their elderly family
members since about 40% of the best answers they selected did
not match health professionals’ picks.