[The internet: an Orthopedist's boon or bane?].

AIM

The Internet provides additional and nearly endless health-related information material for the patient. On the other hand, previous studies reported on the lack of quality for health-related websites, especially for message boards. A direct analysis of treatment recommendations from message board members and spine experts has not yet been published in the medical literature. The aim of this study is to evaluate the quality of information regarding treatment of scoliosis one can receive from message board members compared to experts in this field.

METHOD

All members of one of Germany's biggest scoliosis-related message boards were invited to fill out an online questionnaire. This questionnaire included questions regarding demographic data, questions commenting on the influence of the Internet regarding their own decision finding, and six imaginary cases with four answer options each. The attendees were asked to provide the best treatment option. The answers of experts in the treatment of spinal disorders who commented on the same cases were used as control.

RESULTS

31 complete questionnaires from Internet patients were included in the analysis and compared to 36 answers from spine experts. In four of six cases an excellent agreement could be found. There was a good agreement in one case and a poor agreement in another. The disagreement would unlikely have led to harm for the patient. One third of the patients claimed that information received from the Internet has had a major impact on their own decision finding.

CONCLUSION

The data show that treatment recommendations from members of a scoliosis-related message board have good to excellent agreement with treatment recommendations from experts in the majority of cases. The use of a message board can potentially be helpful in the care of scoliosis patients. Additional studies will evaluate whether or not the results of our study are representative for other message boards as well.