Department of Radiation Oncology, BC Cancer Agency-Vancouver Center, 600 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, British Columbia, V5Z 4E6, Canada.
Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, University of Toronto, 12th Floor, 123 Edward Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 1E2, Canada.
J Cancer Educ. 2023 Jun;38(3):863-869. doi: 10.1007/s13187-022-02198-0. Epub 2022 Jul 19.
The Internet is a readily available source of information, and patients in North America frequently access it. Esophageal cancer is the 7th most common cancer worldwide, but there is a lack of studies examining esophageal cancer website quality. This current study looks to systematically analyze the quality of websites accessed by patients with esophageal cancer. A previously validated website evaluation tool was used to analyze the quality of online esophageal cancer resources for patients. The term "esophagus cancer" was used to retrieve hits from the search engine Google and the meta-search engines Dogpile and Yippy. A 100 website list was compiled using pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Websites were evaluated regarding administration, accountability, authorship, organization, readability, content, and accuracy. The term "esophagus cancer" returned over 500 websites from the search engines. Of the 100 websites included for analysis, 97% disclosed ownership, sponsorship, and advertising. Only 35% identified an author and even fewer (31%) gave the author's credentials. Only 31% declared updates to their information within the past 2 years. Readability scores revealed only 9%, and 12% of sites scored at an elementary level, according to the Flesch-Kincaid (FK) and SMOG scoring scales, respectively. The average FK and SMOG scores were 12.6 and 11.0, respectively. Detection was the most accurately described (70%). However, few websites provided accurate incidence/prevalence (28%), stage-specific prognosis (27%), or preventative information (17%). The quality of websites offering information on esophageal cancer is variable. While they overwhelmingly disclose website ownership interests, most do not identify authors, poorly describe important domains of esophageal cancer, and overall readability exceeds the commonly accepted level for non-healthcare professionals.
互联网是一个信息资源丰富的平台，北美患者经常访问该平台。食管癌是全球第七大常见癌症，但目前缺乏对食管癌网站质量的研究。本研究旨在系统分析食管癌患者访问的网站质量。使用经过验证的网站评估工具来分析面向食管癌患者的在线食管癌资源的质量。使用“食管癌”一词从搜索引擎 Google 和元搜索引擎 Dogpile 和 Yippy 中检索结果。使用预先指定的纳入和排除标准编制了 100 个网站列表。从管理、问责制、作者身份、组织、可读性、内容和准确性等方面评估网站。“食管癌”一词从搜索引擎中返回了 500 多个网站。在纳入分析的 100 个网站中，97%的网站披露了所有权、赞助和广告信息。只有 35%的网站确定了作者，更少的网站（31%）给出了作者的资格证明。只有 31%的网站宣称在过去 2 年内更新了信息。根据 Flesch-Kincaid (FK) 和 SMOG 评分标准，可读性评分仅为 9%和 12%，分别有 9%和 12%的网站得分为基础水平。平均 FK 和 SMOG 得分为 12.6 和 11.0。检测（70%）描述得最为准确。然而，很少有网站提供准确的发病率/流行率（28%）、特定阶段的预后（27%）或预防信息（17%）。提供食管癌信息的网站质量参差不齐。虽然它们压倒性地披露了网站所有权利益，但大多数网站没有确定作者，没有很好地描述食管癌的重要领域，而且总体可读性超过了非医疗保健专业人员普遍接受的水平。
