Open access World Wide Web resources on urogenital infections.

BACKGROUND

Urinary tract infections are the most common infections seen in hospitalized patients and the second most common, after respiratory tract infections, seen in the general population. The World Wide Web can now assist healthcare professionals in finding up-to-date information on different medical conditions.

METHODS

We sought to identify websites that contain information on urogenital infections by using popular search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. We also reviewed the sites of major institutions, and international healthcare associations. Only those sites that were written in English, were open access, and developed by a government, academic institution or a national or international healthcare professionals association were included.

RESULTS

We selected 114 sites that provide healthcare professionals with useful information on urogenital infections based on the criteria described above.

CONCLUSIONS

There are several free websites that contain worthy information on urogenital infections. The compilation of a list of Internet resources on these common types of infections may be useful to practitioners and medical students.