P488 How reliable is the online medical information on paediatric inflammatory bowel diseases?

Abstract

Abstract Background Patients with paediatric Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (p-IBD) and their families widely use the Internet as a resource and tend to read the first page of 10 results. However, online content may be of questionable quality, and valuable information may be hard to find. This study aimed to (i) determine the average quality of online information on p-IBD and (ii) analyze whether it depends on the source of information. Methods A google search was performed on the 28 October 2019 using the keywords: ‘Crohn’s disease’, ‘ulcerative colitis’, ‘Inflammatory Bowel Disease’, ‘colonoscopy’, ‘endoscopy’, all of them combined with the terms ‘paediatric’ and ‘children’. We recorded the first 10 results for each search and excluded scientific papers, advertisements, videos and sites requiring subscription. Websites were classified according to their origin as hospital, professional society, government agency, health press or patient organisations. The quality of the information was assessed with the DISCERN instrument, a validated 16-point questionnaire (total score 16–80) to evaluate the quality of written information. DISCERN scores were graded as excellent (68–80), good (55–67), fair (42–54), poor (29–41) or very poor (16–28). In order to minimise subjectivity, four evaluators assessed the quality, and the mean total score was calculated for every selected website. The proportion of websites with excellent or good grading in each category was compared using the Fisher test. Results We identified 100 websites and 65 met the inclusion criteria. The type of authorship and DISCERN scores are shown in Table 1. The overall median DISCERN score was 40.8 [interquartile range, IQR 10.5]. Only 5 websites had an excellent or good score. The proportion of websites with excellent or good grading was significantly higher in those from government agencies and professional societies (33.3% and 30% vs. 2% and 0%, p < 0.05). None of the health press websites showed excellent or good grading. Surprisingly, no websites from patient organisations were identified. Conclusion The quality of online information on p-IBD is highly variable. Most of the easily found websites are from hospitals, but professional societies and government agencies provide a higher quality of information. Improvement of online information on p-IBD is still needed.