The Quality of Information Available on the Internet About Aortic Aneurysm and Its Endovascular Treatment

Abstract

Introduction and objectives To evaluate the readability, accessibility, usability, and reliability of information available on the Internet in the Spanish language about aortic aneurysm and its endovascular treatment, and to determine whether this information source provides comprehensible material that will enable patients to participate in decisions regarding their condition. Methods In November 2010, information from the Internet was compiled by entering the terms “ aneurisma aorta” (aortic aneurysm) and “ endoprótesis aorta” (aortic endoprosthesis) in the most widely used search engines: Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Bing. The first 30 pages provided by each search engine were analyzed. The Inflesz software was used to calculate the readability of the information retrieved and the LIDA instrument, a validated tool to evaluate the quality of health-related Web sites, was used to assess accessibility, usability, and reliability. Results The results for Web pages containing the terms aneurisma aorta and endoprótesis aorta indicated that the readability of the material retrieved was “somewhat difficult” based on the Flesch index within Microsoft Word (48.3 ± 11.42 and 50.11 ± 9.33, respectively; P=.87), Flesch-Szigriszt index (52.69 ± 8.86, 49.31 ± 7.24; P=.87), Fernández-Huerta index (58.05 ± 8.5, 54.44 ± 7.19; P=.82), and Gunning-Fog index (22.03 ± 2.05, 23.86 ± 1.59; P=.83), as well as the Inflesz grading scale (2.39 ± 0.7, 2.08 ± 0.64; P=.28). The LIDA values for accessibility (82.28 ± 14.14, 77.77 ± 12.64; P=.98), usability (72.28 ± 16.67, 72.28 ± 26.61; P=.08), and reliability (46.17 ± 28.69, 56.38 ± 16.17; P=.06) and the total score (70.22 ± 16.85, 72.15 ± 14.93; P=.52), yielded an evaluation of “moderate”. Conclusions The Internet information on aortic aneurysms and its endovascular treatment with aortic endoprostheses was deficient with regard to accessibility, usability, and reliability, and had the added difficultly of complicated readability. Our results suggest that readability indexes should be incorporated in the creation and improvement of Web sites providing medical information related to cardiovascular disease.