Druce Irena, Williams Chantal, Baggoo Carolyn, Keely Erin, Malcolm Janine
Endocr Pract. 2017 Oct;23(10):1217-1222. doi: 10.4158/EP171892.OR. Epub 2017 Aug 17.
Patients are increasingly turning to the internet to seek reliable sources of health information and desire guidance in assessing the quality of information as healthcare becomes progressively more complex. Pituitary adenomas are a rare, diverse group of tumors associated with increased mortality and morbidity whose management requires a multidisciplinary approach. As such, patients with this disorder are often searching for additional sources of healthcare information. We undertook a study to assess the quality of information available on the internet for patients with pituitary adenoma.
After exclusion, 42 websites were identified based on a search engine query with various search terms. Each website was assessed in triplicate: once by a health professional, once by a simulated patient, and once by a patient who had a pituitary adenoma and underwent medical and surgical treatment. The assessment tools included a content-specific questionnaire, the DISCERN tool, and the Ensuring Quality Information for Patients tool. The readability of the information was assessed with the Flesch-Kincaid grade level.
We found that the overall quality of information on pituitary adenoma on the internet was variable and written at a high grade level. Correlation between the different assessors was poor, indicating that there may be differences in how healthcare professionals and patients view healthcare information.
Our findings highlight the importance of assessment of the health information by groups of the intended user to ensure the needs of that population are met. Abbreviation: EQIP = Ensuring Quality Information for Patients.
随着医疗保健日益复杂，患者越来越多地转向互联网寻求可靠的健康信息来源，并希望在评估信息质量方面得到指导。垂体腺瘤是一组罕见且多样的肿瘤，与死亡率和发病率增加相关，其治疗需要多学科方法。因此，患有这种疾病的患者经常在寻找更多的医疗保健信息来源。我们开展了一项研究，以评估互联网上可供垂体腺瘤患者使用的信息质量。
排除相关内容后，基于使用各种搜索词的搜索引擎查询，确定了42个网站。每个网站由一名医疗专业人员、一名模拟患者和一名患有垂体腺瘤并接受过药物和手术治疗的患者分别进行三次评估。评估工具包括一份特定内容问卷、DISCERN工具和“为患者确保质量信息”工具。使用弗莱什-金凯德年级水平来评估信息的可读性。
我们发现，互联网上关于垂体腺瘤的信息总体质量参差不齐，且写作水平较高。不同评估者之间的相关性较差，这表明医疗专业人员和患者对医疗保健信息的看法可能存在差异。
我们的研究结果强调了目标用户群体对健康信息进行评估的重要性，以确保满足该群体的需求。缩写：EQIP = 为患者确保质量信息。
