Yacob Michael, Lotfi Shamim, Tang Shannon, Jetty Prasad
Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
JMIR Med Educ. 2020 Jun 19;6(1):e18076. doi: 10.2196/18076.
Medical students commonly refer to Wikipedia as their preferred online resource for medical information. The quality and readability of articles about common vascular disorders on Wikipedia has not been evaluated or compared against a standard textbook of surgery.
The aims of this study were to (1) compare the quality of Wikipedia articles to that of equivalent chapters in a standard undergraduate medical textbook of surgery, (2) identify any errors of omission in either resource, and (3) compare the readability of both resources using validated ease-of-reading and grade-level tools.
Using the Medical Council of Canada Objectives for the Qualifying Examination, 8 fundamental topics of vascular surgery were chosen. The articles were found on Wikipedia using Wikipedia's native search engine. The equivalent chapters were identified in Schwartz Principles of Surgery (ninth edition). Medical learners (n=2) assessed each of the texts on their original platforms to independently evaluate readability, quality, and errors of omission. Readability was evaluated with Flesch Reading Ease scores and 5 grade-level scores (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog Index, Coleman-Liau Index, Simple Measure of Gobbledygook Index, and Automated Readability Index), quality was evaluated using the DISCERN instrument, and errors of omission were evaluated using a standardized scoring system that was designed by the authors.
Flesch Reading Ease scores suggested that Wikipedia (mean 30.5; SD 8.4) was significantly easier to read (P=.03) than Schwartz (mean 20.2; SD 9.0). The mean grade level (calculated using all grade-level indices) of the Wikipedia articles (mean 14.2; SD 1.3) was significantly different (P=.02) than the mean grade level of Schwartz (mean 15.9; SD 1.4). The quality of the text was also assessed using the DISCERN instrument and suggested that Schwartz (mean 71.4; SD 3.1) had a significantly higher quality (P=.002) compared to that of Wikipedia (mean 52.9; SD 11.4). Finally, the Wikipedia error of omission rate (mean 12.5; SD 6.8) was higher than that of Schwartz (mean 21.3; SD 1.9) indicating that there were significantly fewer errors of omission in the surgical textbook (P=.008).
Online resources are increasingly easier to access but can vary in quality. Based on this comparison, the authors of this study recommend the use of vascular surgery textbooks as a primary source of learning material because the information within is more consistent in quality and has fewer errors of omission. Wikipedia can be a useful resource for quick reference, particularly because of its ease of reading, but its vascular surgery articles require further development.
医学生通常将维基百科视为获取医学信息的首选在线资源。维基百科上关于常见血管疾病的文章质量和可读性尚未与标准外科教科书进行评估或比较。
本研究的目的是：（1）将维基百科文章的质量与标准本科医学外科教科书中的等效章节进行比较；（2）识别两种资源中存在的任何遗漏错误；（3）使用经过验证的易读性和年级水平工具比较两种资源的可读性。
根据加拿大医学委员会资格考试目标，选择了8个血管外科基础主题。使用维基百科的原生搜索引擎在维基百科上查找相关文章。在《施瓦茨外科学原理》（第九版）中确定等效章节。医学学习者（n = 2）在其原始平台上评估每篇文本，以独立评估可读性、质量和遗漏错误。使用弗莱什易读性分数和5个年级水平分数（弗莱什 - 金凯德年级水平、冈宁雾指数、科尔曼 - 廖指数、晦涩难懂指数简易测量法和自动可读性指数）评估可读性，使用DISCERN工具评估质量，使用作者设计的标准化评分系统评估遗漏错误。
弗莱什易读性分数表明，维基百科（平均30.5；标准差8.4）比施瓦茨（平均20.2；标准差9.0）明显更易读（P = 0.03）。维基百科文章的平均年级水平（使用所有年级水平指数计算）（平均14.2；标准差1.3）与施瓦茨的平均年级水平（平均15.9；标准差1.4）有显著差异（P = 0.02）。还使用DISCERN工具评估了文本质量，结果表明施瓦茨（平均71.4；标准差3.1）的质量明显高于维基百科（平均52.9；标准差11.4）（P = 0.002）。最后，维基百科的遗漏错误率（平均12.5；标准差6.8）高于施瓦茨（平均21.3；标准差1.9），表明外科教科书中的遗漏错误明显更少（P = 0.008）。
在线资源越来越容易获取，但质量可能参差不齐。基于此比较，本研究的作者建议将血管外科教科书作为主要学习材料来源，因为其中的信息质量更一致，遗漏错误更少。维基百科可以作为快速参考的有用资源，特别是因其易读性，但它的血管外科文章需要进一步完善。
