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The Quality of Online Information for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Google Study

Introduction Affecting more than 30 million adults annually, osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disorder in the United States. A variety of management options for knee OA exists, including physical therapy, weight loss, intra-articular corticosteroid injections, and total joint arthroplast...

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Autores principales: Sullivan, Breanna, Abed, Varag, Joiner, Josh, Benningfield, Max, Landy, David, Hawk, Gregory S, Conley, Caitlin, Jacobs, Cale, Stone, Austin V
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9636897/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36381839
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.29995
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author Sullivan, Breanna
Abed, Varag
Joiner, Josh
Benningfield, Max
Landy, David
Hawk, Gregory S
Conley, Caitlin
Jacobs, Cale
Stone, Austin V
author_facet Sullivan, Breanna
Abed, Varag
Joiner, Josh
Benningfield, Max
Landy, David
Hawk, Gregory S
Conley, Caitlin
Jacobs, Cale
Stone, Austin V
author_sort Sullivan, Breanna
collection PubMed
description Introduction Affecting more than 30 million adults annually, osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disorder in the United States. A variety of management options for knee OA exists, including physical therapy, weight loss, intra-articular corticosteroid injections, and total joint arthroplasty. With many treatments available, patients often utilize the internet to educate themselves about their condition and management options. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality, transparency, and readability of online information for the treatment of knee OA. Methods The search terms “knee,” “arthritis,” and “treatment” were entered into an incognito mode Google browser. Websites were classified by type (commercial, academic, nonacademic medical practice, government/patient advocacy, and other) and graded on content quality, transparency, and readability using the following scores, respectively: modified DISCERN, Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Benchmark, and Flesch-Kincaid (FK) grade level. Results Of the 95 websites evaluated, commercial (mean, 38.2) and academic (37.3) sites had the highest total DISCERN scores, which were significantly greater than nonacademic medical practice (31.8) and government/patient advocacy sites (33.4) (p≤0.035). Nonacademic medical practice sites had the lowest mean total DISCERN (31.8) and JAMA (1.47) scores and the highest FK grade level readability (9.5). There was a significant positive correlation between mean total DISCERN and JAMA scores (r=0.46, p<0.001). Conclusion The mean overall quality of websites regarding the treatment of OA was good as evidenced by greater modified DISCERN scores. However, website quality ranged from poor to excellent, indicating that some websites are still missing key information patients may find useful when assessing treatment options online.
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spelling pubmed-96368972022-11-14 The Quality of Online Information for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Google Study Sullivan, Breanna Abed, Varag Joiner, Josh Benningfield, Max Landy, David Hawk, Gregory S Conley, Caitlin Jacobs, Cale Stone, Austin V Cureus Family/General Practice Introduction Affecting more than 30 million adults annually, osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disorder in the United States. A variety of management options for knee OA exists, including physical therapy, weight loss, intra-articular corticosteroid injections, and total joint arthroplasty. With many treatments available, patients often utilize the internet to educate themselves about their condition and management options. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality, transparency, and readability of online information for the treatment of knee OA. Methods The search terms “knee,” “arthritis,” and “treatment” were entered into an incognito mode Google browser. Websites were classified by type (commercial, academic, nonacademic medical practice, government/patient advocacy, and other) and graded on content quality, transparency, and readability using the following scores, respectively: modified DISCERN, Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Benchmark, and Flesch-Kincaid (FK) grade level. Results Of the 95 websites evaluated, commercial (mean, 38.2) and academic (37.3) sites had the highest total DISCERN scores, which were significantly greater than nonacademic medical practice (31.8) and government/patient advocacy sites (33.4) (p≤0.035). Nonacademic medical practice sites had the lowest mean total DISCERN (31.8) and JAMA (1.47) scores and the highest FK grade level readability (9.5). There was a significant positive correlation between mean total DISCERN and JAMA scores (r=0.46, p<0.001). Conclusion The mean overall quality of websites regarding the treatment of OA was good as evidenced by greater modified DISCERN scores. However, website quality ranged from poor to excellent, indicating that some websites are still missing key information patients may find useful when assessing treatment options online. Cureus 2022-10-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9636897/ /pubmed/36381839 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.29995 Text en Copyright © 2022, Sullivan et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Family/General Practice
Sullivan, Breanna
Abed, Varag
Joiner, Josh
Benningfield, Max
Landy, David
Hawk, Gregory S
Conley, Caitlin
Jacobs, Cale
Stone, Austin V
The Quality of Online Information for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Google Study
title The Quality of Online Information for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Google Study
title_full The Quality of Online Information for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Google Study
title_fullStr The Quality of Online Information for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Google Study
title_full_unstemmed The Quality of Online Information for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Google Study
title_short The Quality of Online Information for the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Google Study
title_sort quality of online information for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis: a google study
topic Family/General Practice
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9636897/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36381839
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.29995
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