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Current paper identifies sources of information on medicines among high school students and discusses the role of the Internet in this process. Cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical survey was conducted with 232 students from a public school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Most students (75.86%) said they had access to information about medicines at school, mainly by teachers (32.48%). Health professionals were identified as the biggest source (42.67%), whereas on the Internet, the most cited tool was YouTube (32.03%). Among students who use the Internet as a source of information, most (76.36%) had used medication in the previous 15 days, did not receive any instructions (60.00%) and regularly self-medicated (44.55%). Results highlight the role of the Internet as a source of information, despite the lack of regulatory mechanisms on what is disseminated, which may compromise the rational use of medicines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analysed the quality of information published on the internet regarding 4 benzodiazepines that are widely used in Brazil: alprazolam, bromazepam, clonazepam and diazepam. This choice is justified by the fact that these drugs are widely used and can generate chemical dependency, and the internet is an important source of information about them. We analysed 20 sites for each drug. More than half (56.3%) of the sites were classified as deficient or very deficient. The most frequent problems with the sites were the absence of a description of the person responsible for the site (60%), incomplete information (62.5%), the absence of a contact for additional information (45%) and the absence of the last date the site was updated (82%). These results reinforce concerns regarding the quality of the health information published on the internet, which has already been noted in the literature, and the need to adopt minimum quality criteria for this information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]