Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Algology, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey.
Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey.
PeerJ. 2022 Jul 20;10:e13686. doi: 10.7717/peerj.13686. eCollection 2022.
The use of the Internet to access healthcare-related information is increasing day by day. However, there are concerns regarding the reliability and comprehensibility of this information. This study aimed to investigate the readability, reliability, and quality of Internet-based patient educational materials (PEM) related to "post-COVID-19 pain."
One-hundred websites that fit the purposes of the study were identified by searching for the terms "post-COVID-19 pain" and "pain after COVID-19" using the Google search engine on February 24, 2022. The website readability was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), and Gunning FOG (GFOG). The reliability, quality, and popularity of the websites were assessed using the JAMA score, DISCERN score/Health on the Net Foundation code of conduct, and Alexa, respectively.
Upon investigation of the textual contents, the mean FRES was 51.40 ± 10.65 (difficult), the mean FKGL and SMOG were 10.93 ± 2.17 and 9.83 ± 1.66 years, respectively, and the mean GFOG was 13.14 ± 2.16 (very difficult). Furthermore, 24.5% of the websites were highly reliable according to JAMA scores, 8% were of high quality according to GQS values, and 10% were HONcode-compliant. There was a statistically significant difference between the website types and reliability ( = 0.003) and quality scores ( = 0.002).
The readability level of PEM on post-COVID-19 pain was considerably higher than grade 6 educational level, as recommended by the National Institutes of Health, and had low reliability and poor quality. We suggest that Internet-based PEM should have a certain degree of readability that is in accordance with the educational level of the general public and feature reliable content.
人们每天都在通过互联网获取与医疗保健相关的信息，这一现象变得愈发普遍。然而，人们对这些信息的可靠性和可理解性存在顾虑。本研究旨在调查与“新冠后疼痛”相关的基于互联网的患者教育材料（PEM）的易读性、可靠性和质量。
于 2022 年 2 月 24 日，通过在谷歌搜索引擎上搜索“post-COVID-19 pain”和“pain after COVID-19”这两个术语，我们确定了 100 个符合研究目的的网站。我们使用 Flesch 阅读容易度得分（FRES）、Flesch-Kincaid 年级水平（FKGL）、简易斯莫格测试（SMOG）和加农 Fog 测试（GFOG）评估网站的易读性。使用 JAMA 评分、DISCERN 评分/健康网络基金会行为准则和 Alexa 分别评估网站的可靠性、质量和受欢迎程度。
在调查文本内容时，平均 FRES 为 51.40±10.65（困难），平均 FKGL 和 SMOG 分别为 10.93±2.17 和 9.83±1.66 年，平均 GFOG 为 13.14±2.16（非常困难）。此外，根据 JAMA 评分，24.5%的网站被认为非常可靠，8%的网站根据 GQS 值被认为质量很高，10%的网站符合 HONcode 标准。网站类型和可靠性（=0.003）以及质量评分（=0.002）之间存在统计学差异。
新冠后疼痛相关 PEM 的可读性水平明显高于美国国立卫生研究院推荐的 6 年级教育水平，且其可靠性和质量较差。我们建议，基于互联网的 PEM 的可读性应与公众的教育水平相符，并具有可靠的内容。
