EVALUATION OF PATIENT‐ORIENTATED INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET FOR COMMMON GASTROENTEROLOGICAL CONDITIONS

Abstract

Objective 1 To characterise the type and quality of patient-orientated internet information for four common gastrointestinal conditions. 2 To compare information found by generic and medical search engines. 3 To compare information found by two different search strategies. Methods Four search phrases; ‘colon cancer’, ‘oesophageal reflux’, ‘gallstones’ and ‘inflammatory bowel disease’, were each entered into two generic and two medical search engines. Patient-orientated sites in the first 20 web addresses were evaluated according to ownership, authorship, referencing, advertising, disclaimer, editorial board and currency. The comprehensiveness of each site was evaluated by a content score. The process was repeated with the addition of ‘patient information’ to each search phrase. Results Of the 346 sites listed, 117 (33.8%) were patient orientated and accessible. Of these, medical search engines identified only 12 of 117 (10%). The majority had disclaimers (72%) and were current (79%). A small proportion were authored (25%), referenced (24%) or had an editorial board (15%). Government sites had the highest average content score. Sites from health search engines were less likely to be authored (P < 0.01), more likely to have government (P < 0.05) or patient self help group ownership (P < 0.01) and had significantly higher average content scores (P < 0.01). The addition of the term ‘patient information’ yielded sites with similar characteristics and content scores but did not increase the pick-up rate. Conclusion The pick up rate of search engines for gastrointestinal patient information is poor. Patients should be directed towards medical search engines and government owned web sites.