What do patients find on the Internet when looking for information about percutaneous coronary intervention? A multi-language cross-sectional assessment (Preprint)

Abstract

The Internet provides general users with wide access to medical information. However, regulating and controlling the quality and reliability of the immense volume of available data is challenging, therefore generating concerns about the consequences of inaccurate healthcare-related documentation. Several tools have been proposed in an effort to increase the transparency and overall trustworthiness of medical information present online.

To analyze and compare the quality and reliability of information about percutaneous coronary intervention on English, German, Hungarian, Romanian, and Russian language websites.

Following a rigorous protocol, 125 websites were selected, 25 for each language subsample. The websites were assessed concerning their general characteristics, compliance with a set of eEurope 2002 credibility criteria, and quality of the informational content (namely completeness and accuracy), based on a topic-specific benchmark. Completeness and accuracy were graded independently by two evaluators. Scores were reported on a scale from 0 to 10. The five language subsamples were compared regarding credibility, completeness, and accuracy. Correlations between credibility scores on the one hand, and completeness and accuracy scores, on the other hand, were tested within each language subsample.

The websites’ compliance with credibility criteria was average at best with scores between 3.0 and 6.0. In matters of completeness and accuracy, the website subsets qualified as poor or average, with scores ranging from 2.4 to 4.6 and 3.6 to 5.3, respectively. English language websites scored significantly higher in all three aspects, followed by German and Hungarian language websites. Only German language websites showed a significant correlation between credibility and completeness.

The quality of websites in English, German, Hungarian, Romanian, and Russian language about percutaneous coronary intervention was rather inadequate and may raise concerns regarding their impact on informed decision-making. Using credibility criteria as indicators of information quality may not be warranted as credibility scores were only exceptionally correlated with content quality.