Lewiecki E M, Rudolph L A, Kiebzak G M, Chavez J R, Thorpe B M
New Mexico Clinical Research & Osteoporosis Center, 300 Oak St. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA.
Osteoporos Int. 2006;17(5):741-52. doi: 10.1007/s00198-005-0042-5. Epub 2006 Jan 31.
The Internet provides great opportunities for patient healthcare education, but poses risks that inaccurate, outdated, or harmful information will be disseminated. Osteoporosis is a topic of great interest to patients, many of whom use the Internet to obtain medical information. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate measurement tools to determine the quality of osteoporosis websites for patients.
Quality indicators in the categories of content, credibility, navigability, currency, and readability were incorporated into separate evaluation tools for healthcare professionals and for patients. Websites were selected from an Internet search. Interobserver reliability and validity were assessed, and a sample of osteoporosis websites was evaluated by an osteoporosis nurse educator and compared to patient evaluations.
For the quality indicators, there was 79% agreement between the osteoporosis nurse educators, 88% agreement between the physician osteoporosis experts, and 71% agreement comparing the osteoporosis nurse educators to the physician osteoporosis experts. Quality scores for evaluated websites ranged from 18-96 (maximum possible=100), with a mean of 66. Websites with Uniform Resource Locator (URL) suffix .com scored significantly lower compared to those with .gov (P<0.05), .edu (P<0.01), and .org (P<0.01). Healthcare professionals and patients were in agreement on the quality of the highest-rated websites, with less agreement for lower-rated websites.
In summary, a tool for measuring the quality of medical websites was developed and evaluated. Significant variability in osteoporosis-website quality was observed. Higher-quality scores were associated with a higher level of search engine match and specific URL suffixes. A validated tool for evaluating medical websites may have value in assisting patients to select high-quality osteoporosis educational information on the Internet, and may encourage website developers to improve the quality of information that is provided.
互联网为患者医疗保健教育提供了巨大机遇，但也带来了不准确、过时或有害信息传播的风险。骨质疏松症是患者非常关注的话题，许多患者通过互联网获取医疗信息。本研究的目的是开发并评估测量工具，以确定面向患者的骨质疏松症网站的质量。
将内容、可信度、可导航性、时效性和可读性等类别中的质量指标纳入针对医疗专业人员和患者的单独评估工具。通过互联网搜索选择网站。评估了观察者间的可靠性和有效性，并由一名骨质疏松症护士教育工作者对骨质疏松症网站样本进行评估，并与患者评估结果进行比较。
对于质量指标，骨质疏松症护士教育工作者之间的一致性为79%，医生骨质疏松症专家之间的一致性为88%，将骨质疏松症护士教育工作者与医生骨质疏松症专家进行比较时的一致性为71%。评估网站的质量得分在18 - 96之间（最高可能得分 = 100），平均分为66。与具有.gov（P<0.05）、.edu（P<0.01）和.org（P<0.01）后缀的网站相比，具有统一资源定位符（URL）后缀.com的网站得分显著更低。医疗专业人员和患者对评分最高的网站质量达成一致，而对评分较低的网站则意见较少。
总之，开发并评估了一种用于测量医疗网站质量的工具。观察到骨质疏松症网站质量存在显著差异。较高的质量得分与较高水平的搜索引擎匹配度和特定的URL后缀相关。一种经过验证的医疗网站评估工具可能有助于患者在互联网上选择高质量的骨质疏松症教育信息，并可能鼓励网站开发者提高所提供信息的质量。
