The Quality of Health Information on Allergic Rhinitis, Rhinitis, and Sinusitis Available on the Internet

PURPOSE: The internet has become one of the most important media outlets used to obtain health information. Therefore, the quality of health information available on the internet is very important. We evaluated the quality of internet-derived health information on allergic rhinitis, rhinitis and sinusitis and compared these results to those of previous studies performed five years ago. METHODS: The terms "allergic rhinitis (AR)", "rhinitis" and "sinusitis" were searched among the four most commonly used search engines in South Korea. These websites were evaluated according to the author, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks, the DISCERN questionnaire and the Allergic rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) 2008 Update. RESULTS: A total of 120 websites were obtained and analyzed. For all diseases, "Oriental physician" had the largest portion (almost half of all websites), followed by "Western physician". Based on analyses using the JAMA benchmark, "Attribution" and "Disclosure" were ignored in almost all surveyed websites. According to the scores of the DISCERN question, the majority of websites did not supply appropriate references for their health information, and information on the negative aspects of treatment such as risks and uncertainty was not provided in several websites. In an analysis based on the ARIA 2008 Update concepts, 65% of websites pertaining to health information on AR contained unreliable information. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of health information on the internet was not acceptable. Thus, governmental regulation or control to improve the quality of health information is required.