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Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine

Purpose. To compare the quality of health information on the Internet for keywords related to urolithiasis, to assess for difference in information quality across four main Western languages, and to compare the source of sponsorship in these websites. Methods. Health On the Net (HON) Foundation prin...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chang, Dwayne T. S., Abouassaly, Robert, Lawrentschuk, Nathan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5164884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28044076
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/8243095
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author Chang, Dwayne T. S.
Abouassaly, Robert
Lawrentschuk, Nathan
author_facet Chang, Dwayne T. S.
Abouassaly, Robert
Lawrentschuk, Nathan
author_sort Chang, Dwayne T. S.
collection PubMed
description Purpose. To compare the quality of health information on the Internet for keywords related to urolithiasis, to assess for difference in information quality across four main Western languages, and to compare the source of sponsorship in these websites. Methods. Health On the Net (HON) Foundation principles were utilised to determine quality information. Fifteen keywords related to urolithiasis were searched on the Google search engine. The first 150 websites were assessed against the HON principles and the source of sponsorship determined. Results. A total of 8986 websites were analysed. A proportion of HON-accredited websites for individual search terms range between 2.5% and 12.0%. The first 50 websites were more likely to be HON-positive compared to websites 51–100 and 101–150. French websites searched were more likely to be HON-positive whereas German websites were less likely to be HON-positive than English websites. There was no statistically significant difference between the rate of HON-positive English and Spanish websites. The three main website sponsors were from government/educational sources (40.2%), followed by commercial (29.9%) and physician/surgeon sources (18.6%). Conclusions. Health information on most urolithiasis websites was not validated. Nearly one-third of websites in this study have commercial sponsorship. Doctors should recognise the need for more reliable health websites for their patients.
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spelling pubmed-51648842017-01-02 Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine Chang, Dwayne T. S. Abouassaly, Robert Lawrentschuk, Nathan Adv Urol Research Article Purpose. To compare the quality of health information on the Internet for keywords related to urolithiasis, to assess for difference in information quality across four main Western languages, and to compare the source of sponsorship in these websites. Methods. Health On the Net (HON) Foundation principles were utilised to determine quality information. Fifteen keywords related to urolithiasis were searched on the Google search engine. The first 150 websites were assessed against the HON principles and the source of sponsorship determined. Results. A total of 8986 websites were analysed. A proportion of HON-accredited websites for individual search terms range between 2.5% and 12.0%. The first 50 websites were more likely to be HON-positive compared to websites 51–100 and 101–150. French websites searched were more likely to be HON-positive whereas German websites were less likely to be HON-positive than English websites. There was no statistically significant difference between the rate of HON-positive English and Spanish websites. The three main website sponsors were from government/educational sources (40.2%), followed by commercial (29.9%) and physician/surgeon sources (18.6%). Conclusions. Health information on most urolithiasis websites was not validated. Nearly one-third of websites in this study have commercial sponsorship. Doctors should recognise the need for more reliable health websites for their patients. Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2016 2016-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5164884/ /pubmed/28044076 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/8243095 Text en Copyright © 2016 Dwayne T. S. Chang et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Chang, Dwayne T. S.
Abouassaly, Robert
Lawrentschuk, Nathan
Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine
title Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine
title_full Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine
title_fullStr Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine
title_full_unstemmed Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine
title_short Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine
title_sort quality of health information on the internet for urolithiasis on the google search engine
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5164884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28044076
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/8243095
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