Abstract
BackgroundMost people currently use the internet to obtain information about many subjects, including health information. Thus, medical associations need to provide accurate medical information websites. Although medical associations have their own patient education pages, it is not clear if these websites actually show up in search results.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to evaluate how well medical associations function as online information providers by searching for information about musculoskeletal-related pain online and determining the ranking of the websites of medical associations.MethodsWe conducted a Google search for frequently searched keywords. Keywords were extracted using Google Ads Keyword Planner associated with “pain” relevant to the musculoskeletal system from June 2016 to December 2019. The top 20 search queries were extracted and searched using the Google search engine in Japan and the United States.ResultsThe number of suggested queries for “pain” provided by Google Ads Keyword Planner was 930 in the United States and 2400 in Japan. Among the top 20 musculoskeletal-related pain queries chosen, the probability that the medical associations’ websites would appear in the top 10 results was 30% in the United States and 45% in Japan. In five queries each, the associations’ websites did not appear among the top 100 results. No significant difference was found in the rank of the associations’ website search results (P=.28).ConclusionsTo provide accurate medical information to patients, it is essential to undertake effective measures for search engine optimization. For orthopedic associations, it is necessary that their websites should appear among the top search results.
Highlights
Justification Searching for information on the internet is common practice
There has been no research to examine the extent to which medical information from websites supervised by medical associations is acquired from search results
Providing accurate medical information to patients is one of the missions of such medical associations, and orthopedic associations play a key role in the provision of online information about musculoskeletal-related pain
Summary
Justification Searching for information on the internet is common practice. Medical information is no exception, and the term “consulting Dr Google” has been popularized to represent searching for medical information on the internet [1]. Most people currently use the internet to obtain information about many subjects, including health information. Medical associations have their own patient education pages, it is not clear if these websites show up in search results. Many people with musculoskeletal pain such as lower back pain and sciatica use Google to obtain information about their conditions. In such situations, it is valuable to know the type of information that people obtain from internet searches. Providing accurate medical information to patients is one of the missions of such medical associations, and orthopedic associations play a key role in the provision of online information about musculoskeletal-related pain
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