Bremner J Douglas, Quinn John, Quinn William, Veledar Emir
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30306, USA.
Med Inform Internet Med. 2006 Sep;31(3):227-36. doi: 10.1080/14639230600887866.
Psychological trauma is a major public-health problem, and trauma victims frequently turn to the Internet for medical information related to trauma. The Internet has many advantages for trauma victims, including low cost, privacy, use of access, and reduced direct social interactions. However, there are no regulations on what is posted on the Internet, or by whom, and little is known about the quality of information currently available related to the topic of psychological trauma. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of Internet sites related to the topic of psychological trauma. The top 20 hits for searches on Google, AllTheWeb, and Yahoo were tabulated, using search words of 'psychological trauma', 'stress', 'PTSD', and 'trauma'. From these searches, a list of 94 unique unsponsored hits that represented accessible websites was generated. Fourteen sites were unrelated or only peripherally related, and eight were related but were not comprehensively evaluated because they represented brochures, online book sales, etc. Seventy-two websites underwent evaluation of the content, design, disclosure, ease of use, and other factors based on published guidelines for medical information sites. Forty-two per cent of sites had inaccurate information, 82% did not provide a source of their information, and 41% did not use a mental-health professional in the development of the content. Ratings of content (e.g. accuracy, reliability, etc.) were 4 (2 SD) on a scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being the best. There were similar ratings for the other variables assessed. These findings suggest that although abundant, websites providing information about psychological trauma are often not useful, and can sometimes provide inaccurate and potentially harmful information to consumers of medical information.
心理创伤是一个重大的公共卫生问题，创伤受害者经常会在互联网上查找与创伤相关的医学信息。互联网对创伤受害者有诸多优势，包括成本低、隐私性好、易于访问，以及减少直接的社交互动。然而，互联网上发布的内容及其发布者并无相关规定，目前对于与心理创伤主题相关的现有信息质量了解甚少。本研究的目的是评估与心理创伤主题相关的互联网站点的质量。使用“心理创伤”“压力”“创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）”和“创伤”等搜索词，将在谷歌、AllTheWeb和雅虎上搜索到的排名前20的结果制成表格。通过这些搜索，生成了一份包含94个独特的无赞助链接的列表，这些链接代表了可访问的网站。其中14个网站无关或仅与主题有间接关联，8个网站虽有关联，但因它们代表宣传册、在线图书销售等而未进行全面评估。根据已发布的医学信息网站指南，对72个网站的内容、设计、信息披露、易用性及其他因素进行了评估。42%的网站存在不准确信息，82%未提供信息来源，41%在内容编写过程中未聘请心理健康专业人员。内容评分（如准确性、可靠性等）在1至10分的量表上为4分（标准差为2），10分为最佳。对评估的其他变量也有类似评分。这些发现表明，尽管提供心理创伤信息的网站数量众多，但往往并无用处，有时还会向医学信息消费者提供不准确且可能有害的信息。
