Abstract
BackgroundThe aims of this cross-sectional study were to investigate the regulatory compliance of Dutch practice websites offering orthodontic services, readability of the available treatment information, website design as well as possible relationship with practice location and professional qualification of practitioners.MethodsA comprehensive Internet search was performed using the Google search engine and five relevant terms in Dutch. Eligibility screening of the first 50 results of each search led to the final inclusion of 111 websites. The content of the selected websites was evaluated in terms of compliance to international regulations on ethical advertising guidelines (CED), treatment information text readability using Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), and website design using the BDC assessment tool.ResultsReporting of websites according to CED guidelines covered on average 85% of the mandatory items. No significant differences were observed between dental and orthodontic practices, and between practices located in densely and sparsely populated regions (P > 0.05). The mean FRES of the displayed information indicated difficult-to-understand text. BDC scores of multi-location practices were significantly higher than the rest (P < 0.006).ConclusionsThe websites of orthodontic practices in The Netherlands do not fully comply with CED guidelines on ethical advertising. Readability of the displayed information and website technical performance needs to be further optimized.
Highlights
The aims of this cross-sectional study were to investigate the regulatory compliance of Dutch practice websites offering orthodontic services, readability of the available treatment information, website design as well as possible relationship with practice location and professional qualification of practitioners
As the content of health-related websites has been criticized for extreme variability in quality, imbalance between posted information and patient health literacy, and likely interference of commercial interests, regulatory action has been taken at European Union (EU) and national level to optimize the development of dental practice websites [3]
In line with European guidance, the General Dental Council (GDC) in the United Kingdom (UK) has produced an ethical framework for regulating dental advertising by practice websites [5]
Summary
The aims of this cross-sectional study were to investigate the regulatory compliance of Dutch practice websites offering orthodontic services, readability of the available treatment information, website design as well as possible relationship with practice location and professional qualification of practitioners. As the content of health-related websites has been criticized for extreme variability in quality, imbalance between posted information and patient health literacy, and likely interference of commercial interests, regulatory action has been taken at European Union (EU) and national level to optimize the development of dental practice websites [3]. The Council of European Dentists has published the Code of Ethics for Dentists (CED), a code including mandatory and discretionary provider and professional information that should be displayed on a dental website to guide commercial communications of dentists within EU and information services on the Internet [4]. Compliance of UK dental (2020) 21:2 and orthodontic practices to GDC core principles is generally poor and rather slowly improving [2, 6,7,8,9]
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