Systematic assessment of online health information related to drug therapy for non-small cell lung cancer.

Abstract

e18626 Background: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type of lung cancer. Patients increasingly use the internet for drug therapy information that may influence decision-making, drug adherence, and self-management. However, online drug therapy information is prone to quality and readability issues. We systemically assess online drug therapy information for patients with NSCLC in terms of quality, suitability, reliability and readability. Methods: NSCLC online drug therapy websites were searched with three terms using three major engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing). Validated tools were used to assess the content in terms of quality (DISCERN), suitability (Suitability Assessment of Materials [SAM]), reliability (Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA] benchmarks and the Health on the Net [HON] code), readability (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level). The scores were compared in drug therapy and affiliation subgroups. Results: A total of 52 websites were included. The median quality score was 48.8 (interquartile range [IQR], 39.5-57.0), or fair (39-50). The quality scores were not statistically significant between different subgroups. The median suitability score was 43.8% (40.6%-46.4%), or adequate (40%-69%). The commercial websites showed the highest median suitability score of 45.2%, which was significantly higher than that of non-profit websites ( P < 0.05). The average readability was at a grade of 10.6 level using the Flesch-Kincaid scale which was significantly higher than the traditionally recommended grade-six level ( P＜0.001). The median reliability scores of commercial websites were observably higher than non-profit websites ( P＜0.05). Around 40% of websites were HON code accredited. Conclusions: Most online resources for NSCLC have fair quality, adequate suitability, and poor readability. Reliability was of a moderate level. Therefore, healthcare providers should be cautious when referring patients to online health information and the online information for NSCLC has great room for improvement.[Table: see text]