Thoracic Surgery Information on the Internet: A Multilingual Quality Assessment

Background Previous data suggest that quality of Internet information regarding surgical conditions and their treatments is variable. However, no comprehensive analysis of website quality exists for thoracic surgery. Objective The aim of this study was to quantify website quality in a multilingual setting using an international standard for assessment. Methods Health On the Net (HON) principles may be applied to websites using an automated toolbar function. We used the English, French, Spanish, and German Google search engines to identify 12,000 websites using keywords related to thoracic conditions and procedures. The first 150 websites returned by each keyword in each language were examined. We compared website quality to assess for tertile (is the quality better in first, second, or third 50 websites returned) and language differences. A further analysis of the English site types was undertaken performing a comparative analysis of website provider types. Results Overall, there are a considerable number of websites devoted to thoracic surgery: “lung cancer” returned over 150 million websites. About 7.85% (940/11,967) of websites are HON-accredited with differences by search term (P<.001) and tertiles (P<.001) of the first 150 websites, but not between languages. Oncological keywords regarding conditions and procedures were found to return a higher percentage of HON-accreditation. The percentage of HON-accredited sites was similar across all four languages (P=.77). In general, the first tertile contained a higher percentage of HON-accredited sites for every keyword. Conclusions Clinicians should appreciate the lack of validation of the majority of thoracic websites, with discrepancies in quality and number of websites across conditions and procedures. These differences appear similar regardless of language. An opportunity exists for clinicians to participate in the development of informative, ethical, and reliable health websites on the Internet and direct patients to them.

[1]  Christian Köhler,et al.  How do consumers search for and appraise health information on the world wide web? Qualitative study using focus groups, usability tests, and in-depth interviews , 2002, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[2]  R. Kravitz,et al.  Health information on the Internet: accessibility, quality, and readability in English and Spanish. , 2001, JAMA.

[3]  Julie Ann Sosa,et al.  Outdated and incomplete: a review of thyroid cancer on the World Wide Web. , 2007, Thyroid : official journal of the American Thyroid Association.

[4]  Ian C Hoppe.  Readability of Patient Information Regarding Breast Cancer Prevention from the Web site of the National Cancer Institute , 2010, Journal of Cancer Education.

[5]  F. Hamdy,et al.  Decision-making about PSA testing and prostate biopsies: a qualitative study embedded in a primary care randomised trial. , 2008, European urology.

[6]  Nathan Lawrentschuk,et al.  Health information quality on the internet in urological oncology: a multilingual longitudinal evaluation. , 2009, Urology.

[7]  Per Hall,et al.  Can we trust cancer information on the Internet? – A comparison of interactive cancer risk sites , 2005, Cancer Causes & Control.

[8]  L. Siu,et al.  Impact of the media and the internet on oncology: survey of cancer patients and oncologists in Canada. , 2001, Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

[9]  Timo Honkela,et al.  MedIEQ-Quality labelling of medical web content using multilingual information extraction. , 2006, Studies in health technology and informatics.

[10]  A. Scott,et al.  Oncology Health Information Quality on the Internet: a Multilingual Evaluation , 2012, Annals of Surgical Oncology.

[11]  P Devine,et al.  Internet use by patients with prostate cancer undergoing radiotherapy. , 2003, Urology.

[12]  Ahmad Risk,et al.  Review Of Internet Health Information Quality Initiatives , 2001, Journal of medical Internet research.

[13]  Ana Babac,et al.  Adopting Quality Criteria for Websites Providing Medical Information About Rare Diseases , 2016, Interactive journal of medical research.

[14]  Thomas J. Mueller,et al.  Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education competency-based on-line computer course in pediatric oncology for urology residents. , 2008, Urology.

[15]  Katrina Armstrong,et al.  Differences in information seeking among breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer patients: results from a population-based survey. , 2010, Patient education and counseling.

[16]  M. Menon,et al.  Unhappy patients: musings of two surgical nihilists. , 2008, European urology.

[17]  Sasha Shepperd,et al.  Learning to DISCERN online: applying an appraisal tool to health websites in a workshop setting. , 2004, Health education research.

[18]  Angela Fagerlin,et al.  Use of the Internet and Ratings of Information Sources for Medical Decisions: Results from the DECISIONS Survey , 2010, Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making.

[19]  P. Grewal,et al.  The quality and readability of colorectal cancer information on the internet. , 2013, International journal of surgery.

[20]  Luis Fernandez-Luque,et al.  Identifying Measures Used for Assessing Quality of YouTube Videos with Patient Health Information: A Review of Current Literature , 2013, Interactive journal of medical research.

[21]  David Brennan,et al.  Third Molars on the Internet: A Guide for Assessing Information Quality and Readability , 2015, Interactive journal of medical research.

[22]  S. Bhayani,et al.  Robotic partial nephrectomy versus laparoscopic partial nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma: single-surgeon analysis of >100 consecutive procedures. , 2009, Urology.

[23]  J. Eastham.  Robotic-assisted prostatectomy: is there truth in advertising? , 2008, European urology.

[24]  Sandra Williams Hilfiker,et al.  Making Quality Health Websites a National Public Health Priority: Toward Quality Standards , 2016, Journal of medical Internet research.

[25]  S. Killeen,et al.  Gastric cancer-related information on the Internet: incomplete, poorly accessible, and overly commercial. , 2011, American journal of surgery.

[26]  HON code of conduct for medical and health Web sites. , 2000, American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

[27]  Jean-Raoul Scherrer,et al.  HONselect: a multilingual and intelligent search tool integrating heterogeneous web resources , 2001, Int. J. Medical Informatics.

[28]  Aaron B Caughey,et al.  Google obstetrics: who is educating our patients? , 2008, American journal of obstetrics and gynecology.

[29]  Natalia Grabar,et al.  Machine Learning Approach for Automatic Quality Criteria Detection of Health Web Pages , 2007, MedInfo.

[30]  M. Menon.  Editorial comment on: Laparoscopy in German urology: changing acceptance among urologists. , 2009, European urology.

[31]  R. Nassab,et al.  The availability and content analysis of melanoma information on YouTube. , 2010, Plastic and reconstructive surgery.

[32]  N. Lawrentschuk,et al.  Consumerism and its impact on robotic‐assisted radical prostatectomy , 2011, BJU international.

[33]  N. Lawrentschuk,et al.  A multilingual evaluation of current health information on the Internet for the treatments of benign prostatic hyperplasia , 2014, Prostate international.