Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery, Room 2112, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada.
Adv Rheumatol. 2021 Jan 19;61(1):6. doi: 10.1186/s42358-021-00162-y.
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is prevalent among patients living with arthritis. Such patients often seek information online, for the purpose of gaining a second opinion to their healthcare provider or even self-medication. Little is known about the quality of web-based consumer health information at the intersection of CAM and arthritis; thus, investigating the quality of websites containing this information was the purpose of this study.
Four unique search terms were searched on Google across four English-speaking countries. We assessed the first 20 results of each search, including them if they contained CAM consumer health information for the treatment and/or management of arthritis. Eligible websites were assessed in duplicate using the DISCERN instrument, which consists of 16-items designed to assess quality.
Of total of 320 webpages, 239 were duplicates, and a total of 38 unique websites were deemed eligible and assessed using the DISCERN instrument. The mean summed DISCERN scores across all websites was 55.53 (SD = 9.37). The mean score of the overall quality of each website was 3.71 (SD = 0.63), thus the majority of websites are ranked as slightly above 'fair' quality.
Eligible websites generally received scores better than 'moderate' in terms of overall quality. Several shortcomings included a lack of transparency surrounding references used and underreporting of risks associated with treatment options. These results suggest that health providers should be vigilant of the variable quality of information their patients may be accessing online and educate them on how to identify high quality resources.
补充和替代医学（CAM）在关节炎患者中很常见。这些患者经常上网查询信息，目的是对其医疗保健提供者提供的信息进行补充或甚至自行用药。对于 CAM 和关节炎交叉领域的基于网络的消费者健康信息的质量知之甚少；因此，研究这些信息的网站质量是本研究的目的。
在四个英语国家的谷歌上用四个独特的搜索词进行搜索。我们评估了每个搜索的前 20 个结果，如果其中包含 CAM 消费者健康信息用于治疗和/或管理关节炎，则将其包含在内。使用 DISCERN 工具评估合格网站，该工具由 16 个项目组成，旨在评估质量。
在总共 320 个网页中，有 239 个是重复的，共有 38 个独特的网站被认为符合条件，并使用 DISCERN 工具进行了评估。所有网站的平均总和 DISCERN 得分为 55.53（SD=9.37）。每个网站总体质量的平均得分为 3.71（SD=0.63），因此大多数网站的质量等级略高于“公平”。
合格网站的总体质量得分通常高于“中等”。一些缺点包括缺乏对使用的参考资料的透明度以及对治疗方案相关风险的报告不足。这些结果表明，医疗保健提供者应该警惕患者可能在网上获取的信息的质量参差不齐，并教育他们如何识别高质量的资源。
