Department of Laboratory Medicine, University-Hospital of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, University-Hospital of Padova, via Giustiniani 2, Padova 35128, Italy.
Diagnosis (Berl). 2020 Apr 25;8(2):227-232. doi: 10.1515/dx-2020-0022. Print 2021 May 26.
The number of websites providing laboratory test information is increasing fast, although the accuracy of reported resources is sometimes questionable. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of online retrievable information by Google Search engine.
Considering urinalysis, cholesterol and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) as keywords, the Google Search engine was queried. Using Google Trends, users' search trends (interest over time) were evaluated in a 5-year period. The first three or 10 retrieved hits were analysed in blind by two reviewers and classified according to the type of owner or publisher and for the quality of the reported Web content.
The interest over time constantly increased for all the three considered tests. Most of the Web content owners were editorial and/or publishing groups (mean percentage 35.5% and 30.0% for the first three and 10 hits, respectively). Public and health agencies and scientific societies are less represented. Among the first three and 10 hits, cited sources were found to vary from 26.0% to 46.7% of Web page results, whilst for cholesterol, 60% of the retrieved Web contents reported only authors' signatures.
Our findings confirm those obtained in other studies in the literature, demonstrating that online Web searches can lead patients to inadequately written or reviewed health information.
提供实验室检测信息的网站数量增长迅速，尽管所报道资源的准确性有时值得怀疑。本研究旨在评估谷歌搜索引擎在线可检索信息的质量。
以尿分析、胆固醇和前列腺特异性抗原（PSA）为关键词，使用谷歌搜索引擎进行检索。利用谷歌趋势，评估了 5 年内用户的搜索趋势（随时间的兴趣变化）。由两名评审员对前三个或前 10 个检索结果进行盲法分析，并根据所有者或出版商的类型以及报告的网络内容质量进行分类。
所有三种检测的随时间的兴趣都在不断增加。大多数网络内容的所有者是编辑和/或出版团体（前三个和前 10 个检索结果的平均百分比分别为 35.5%和 30.0%）。公共和卫生机构以及科学协会的代表性较少。在前三个和前 10 个检索结果中，发现引用的来源从网页结果的 26.0%到 46.7%不等，而对于胆固醇，检索到的 60%的网络内容仅报告了作者的签名。
我们的研究结果证实了文献中其他研究的结果，表明在线网络搜索可能会导致患者获取到写作质量较差或未经审查的健康信息。
