Evaluation of internet derived patient information

INTRODUCTION: The internet is a widely used, powerful resource for patients to research medical conditions. There is an extensive amount of information available on the internet. It is important for patient information to be accurate and in an easily accessible format. This article aims to assess the quality of patient information on hydrocephalus and compares the findings with recent evaluations in other surgical specialties. METHODS: The term ‘hydrocephalus’ was searched for on the search engines http://www.google.com/, http://www.bing.com/ and http://www.yahoo.com/. The top 20 results of these searches were assessed using the University of Michigan consumer health website evaluation checklist. RESULTS: The quality of patient information websites on hydrocephalus is highly variable. Websites rarely provide sufficient authorship information, do not review their information regularly enough and only reference material occasionally. The background of the provider was found to influence the quality of the website, with academic and care providers creating the best websites. CONCLUSIONS: On comparing our findings with those of recent studies from other surgical specialties, it was found that there was often a conflict of interest between the background of the provider and the information supplied. It is recommended that clinicians personally research material for their patients to be able to guide them to suitable, accurate websites.