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Credibility, Accuracy, and Comprehensiveness of Internet-Based Information About Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND: Low back pain (LBP) affects millions of people worldwide, and misconceptions about effective treatment options for this condition are very common. Websites sponsored by organizations recognized as trustworthy by the public, such as government agencies, hospitals, universities, profession...

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Autores principales: Ferreira, Giovanni, Traeger, Adrian C, Machado, Gustavo, O'Keeffe, Mary, Maher, Christopher G
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6529212/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31066689
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/13357
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author Ferreira, Giovanni
Traeger, Adrian C
Machado, Gustavo
O'Keeffe, Mary
Maher, Christopher G
author_facet Ferreira, Giovanni
Traeger, Adrian C
Machado, Gustavo
O'Keeffe, Mary
Maher, Christopher G
author_sort Ferreira, Giovanni
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Low back pain (LBP) affects millions of people worldwide, and misconceptions about effective treatment options for this condition are very common. Websites sponsored by organizations recognized as trustworthy by the public, such as government agencies, hospitals, universities, professional associations, health care organizations and consumer organizations are an important source of health information for many people. However, the content of these websites regarding treatment recommendations for LBP has not been fully evaluated. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the credibility, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of treatment recommendations for LBP in noncommercial, freely accessible websites. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of websites from government agencies, hospitals, universities, professional associations, health care organizations and consumer organizations. We conducted searches on Google. Treatment recommendations were coded based on the 2016 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines and the 2017 American College of Physicians guideline on LBP. Primary outcomes were credibility of the website (4-item Journal of the American Medical Association benchmark), accuracy (proportion of website treatment recommendations that were appropriate), and comprehensiveness of website treatment recommendations (proportion of guideline treatment recommendations that were appropriately covered by a website). RESULTS: We included 79 websites from 6 English-speaking countries. In terms of credibility, 31% (25/79) of the websites clearly disclosed that they had been updated after the publication of the NICE guidelines. Only 43.28% (487/1125) website treatment recommendations were judged as accurate. Comprehensiveness of treatment recommendations correctly covered by websites was very low across all types of LBP. For acute LBP, an average of 28% (4/14) guideline recommendations were correctly covered by websites. Websites for radicular LBP were the least comprehensive, correctly covering an average of 16% (2.3/14) recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: Noncommercial freely accessible websites demonstrated low credibility standards, provided mostly inaccurate information, and lacked comprehensiveness across all types of LBP.
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spelling pubmed-65292122019-06-07 Credibility, Accuracy, and Comprehensiveness of Internet-Based Information About Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review Ferreira, Giovanni Traeger, Adrian C Machado, Gustavo O'Keeffe, Mary Maher, Christopher G J Med Internet Res Review BACKGROUND: Low back pain (LBP) affects millions of people worldwide, and misconceptions about effective treatment options for this condition are very common. Websites sponsored by organizations recognized as trustworthy by the public, such as government agencies, hospitals, universities, professional associations, health care organizations and consumer organizations are an important source of health information for many people. However, the content of these websites regarding treatment recommendations for LBP has not been fully evaluated. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the credibility, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of treatment recommendations for LBP in noncommercial, freely accessible websites. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of websites from government agencies, hospitals, universities, professional associations, health care organizations and consumer organizations. We conducted searches on Google. Treatment recommendations were coded based on the 2016 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines and the 2017 American College of Physicians guideline on LBP. Primary outcomes were credibility of the website (4-item Journal of the American Medical Association benchmark), accuracy (proportion of website treatment recommendations that were appropriate), and comprehensiveness of website treatment recommendations (proportion of guideline treatment recommendations that were appropriately covered by a website). RESULTS: We included 79 websites from 6 English-speaking countries. In terms of credibility, 31% (25/79) of the websites clearly disclosed that they had been updated after the publication of the NICE guidelines. Only 43.28% (487/1125) website treatment recommendations were judged as accurate. Comprehensiveness of treatment recommendations correctly covered by websites was very low across all types of LBP. For acute LBP, an average of 28% (4/14) guideline recommendations were correctly covered by websites. Websites for radicular LBP were the least comprehensive, correctly covering an average of 16% (2.3/14) recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: Noncommercial freely accessible websites demonstrated low credibility standards, provided mostly inaccurate information, and lacked comprehensiveness across all types of LBP. JMIR Publications 2019-05-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6529212/ /pubmed/31066689 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/13357 Text en ©Giovanni Ferreira, Adrian C Traeger, Gustavo Machado, Mary O'Keeffe, Christopher G Maher. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 07.05.2019. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Review
Ferreira, Giovanni
Traeger, Adrian C
Machado, Gustavo
O'Keeffe, Mary
Maher, Christopher G
Credibility, Accuracy, and Comprehensiveness of Internet-Based Information About Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review
title Credibility, Accuracy, and Comprehensiveness of Internet-Based Information About Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review
title_full Credibility, Accuracy, and Comprehensiveness of Internet-Based Information About Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review
title_fullStr Credibility, Accuracy, and Comprehensiveness of Internet-Based Information About Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review
title_full_unstemmed Credibility, Accuracy, and Comprehensiveness of Internet-Based Information About Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review
title_short Credibility, Accuracy, and Comprehensiveness of Internet-Based Information About Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review
title_sort credibility, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of internet-based information about low back pain: a systematic review
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6529212/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31066689
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/13357
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