Quality of Internet-Based Information on COVID-19 and Dentistry

Abstract

Aim: Dentists and their patients were at high risk for COVID-19 infection. As websites serve as a primary information source for many, this cross-sectional study aimed to assess the validity and reliability of information provided by websites regarding COVID-19 and dentistry. Materials and Methods: An online search was conducted on Google.com using the keywords ‘SARS CoV-2 and dentistry’, ‘COVID-19 and dentistry’ and ‘Coronavirus and dentistry’. The first 50 websites for each keyword were screened in incognito mode. After excluding duplicates, inaccessible and irrelevant websites, 88 websites remained for analysis. These websites were evaluated using the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HON code) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks, which assess authorship, attribution, disclosure and currency of information. Descriptive statistical analyses, chi-square tests and one-way ANOVA were performed. Results: A total of 88 websites were found suitable for quality assessment. Only three of the websites had HON code accreditation. The mean JAMA benchmark score was 3.75 ± 0.7. The majority of the websites (62.5%) were academic, with a JAMA score of 3.84 ± 0.5. News and non-profit sites had the highest JAMA scores (4.0). Significant differences in JAMA scores were observed across different types of websites ( p < .05). Conclusions: The study found that the quality of websites providing information about COVID-19 and dentistry was generally high, especially among academic sites. This highlights the importance of high-quality online information to ensure that dentists and patients have access to accurate and reliable data during the pandemic.