Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Italy; Department of Neurology, Franz Tappeiner Hospital, Merano, Italy.
Neurological Clinic, Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy.
Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2018 Feb;20:210-214. doi: 10.1016/j.msard.2018.02.001. Epub 2018 Feb 5.
Wikipedia is a frequently-accessed online source of health-related information. In this study we evaluated the number of views of the Italian Wikipedia articles related to multiple sclerosis (MS) and its treatment.
Using Pageviews Analysis we assessed the total views, and mean monthly and daily views of the Italian Wikipedia articles on MS and its treatments from 1 January 2015 to 31 October 2017. We compared the views of the article on MS with those for Alzheimer´s disease, epilepsy, migraine and stroke, and adjusted results for crude disease prevalence.
The total views of the Italian Wikipedia article on MS was 929,983 (mean monthly views: 33,214; mean daily views: 1089). The adjusted views for the Italian Wikipedia article on MS were higher than those for the other neurological disorders. The normalized views for the MS article were 16, 7, 145 and 11 times higher than those of the articles on Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, migraine and stroke, respectively. Peaks were temporally related to famous people with MS talking about their disease in talk shows on television or to news on novel treatments for MS.
Wikipedia searches do not reliably reflect its actual epidemiology. Celebrities with MS acting as testimonials might effectively increase public knowledge on MS.
维基百科是一个经常被访问的健康相关信息在线资源。在这项研究中，我们评估了意大利语维基百科中与多发性硬化症（MS）及其治疗相关的文章的浏览量。
使用页面浏览量分析，我们评估了意大利语维基百科中有关 MS 及其治疗的文章从 2015 年 1 月 1 日至 2017 年 10 月 31 日的总浏览量、每月平均浏览量和每日平均浏览量。我们比较了 MS 文章的浏览量与阿尔茨海默病、癫痫、偏头痛和中风文章的浏览量，并对原始疾病患病率进行了调整。
意大利语维基百科中有关 MS 的文章总浏览量为 929983 次（每月平均浏览量：33214 次；每日平均浏览量：1089 次）。调整后的 MS 文章浏览量高于其他神经障碍文章。MS 文章的标准化浏览量分别是阿尔茨海默病、癫痫、偏头痛和中风文章的 16 倍、7 倍、145 倍和 11 倍。浏览高峰与多发性硬化症患者在电视脱口秀节目中谈论他们的疾病或关于多发性硬化症新治疗方法的新闻有关。
维基百科搜索并不能可靠地反映其实际的流行病学情况。多发性硬化症患者作为代言人的名人效应可能会有效地提高公众对多发性硬化症的认识。
