New Cross Hospital, The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, Wolverhampton, England, United Kingdom.
New Cross Hospital, The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, Wolverhampton, England, United Kingdom.
J Vasc Surg Venous Lymphat Disord. 2024 Mar;12(2):101695. doi: 10.1016/j.jvsv.2023.101695. Epub 2023 Oct 26.
The internet is an increasingly favorable source of information regarding health-related issues. The aim of this study is to apply appropriate evaluation tools to assess the evidence available online about inferior vena cava (IVC) filters with a focus on quality and readability.
A search was performed during December 2022 using three popular search engines, namely Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Websites were categorized into academic, physician, commercial, and unspecified websites according to their content. Information quality was determined using Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) criteria, the DISCERN scoring tool, and whether a Health On the Net Foundation certification (HONcode) seal was present. Readability was established using the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL). Statistical significance was accepted as P < .05.
In total, 110 websites were included in our study. The majority of websites were categorized as commercial (25%), followed by hospital (24%), academic (21%), unspecified (16%), and physician (14%). Average scores for all websites using JAMA and DISCERN were 1.93 ± 1.19 (median, 1.5; range, 0-4) and 45.20 ± 12.58 (median, 45.5; range, 21-75), respectively. The highest JAMA mean score of 3.07 ± 1.16 was allocated to physician websites, and the highest DISCERN mean score of 52.85 ± 12.66 was allocated to hospital websites. The HONcode seal appeared on two of the selected websites. Physician, hospital, and unspecified websites had a significantly higher mean JAMA score than academic and commercial websites (all with P < .001). Hospital websites had a significantly higher mean DISCERN score than academic (P = .007), commercial (P < .001), and unspecified websites (P = .017). Readability evaluation generated a mean FRES score of 51.57 ±12.04, which represented a 10th to 12th grade reading level and a mean FKGL score of 8.20 ± 1.70, which represented an 8th to 10th grade reading level. Only 12 sources were found to meet the ≤6th grade target reading level. No significant correlation was found between overall DISCERN score and overall FRES score.
The study results demonstrate that the quality of online information about IVC filters is suboptimal, and academic and commercial websites, in particular, must enhance their content quality regarding the use of IVC filters. Considering the discontinuation of the HONcode as a standardized quality assessment marker, it is recommended that a similar certification tool be developed and implemented for the accreditation of patient information online.
互联网是一个越来越受欢迎的健康相关问题信息来源。本研究旨在应用适当的评估工具来评估网上有关下腔静脉（IVC）过滤器的证据，重点是质量和可读性。
在 2022 年 12 月期间，使用三个流行的搜索引擎（即 Google、Yahoo 和 Bing）进行了搜索。根据其内容，将网站分为学术、医生、商业和未指定网站。使用《美国医学会杂志》（JAMA）标准、DISCERN 评分工具以及是否存在健康在线基金会认证（HONcode）印章来确定信息质量。使用 Flesch 阅读舒适度得分（FRES）和 Flesch-Kincaid 年级水平（FKGL）来确定可读性。统计学意义的接受标准为 P<0.05。
共有 110 个网站纳入本研究。大多数网站被归类为商业网站（25%），其次是医院网站（24%）、学术网站（21%）、未指定网站（16%）和医生网站（14%）。使用 JAMA 和 DISCERN 的所有网站的平均得分分别为 1.93±1.19（中位数，1.5；范围，0-4）和 45.20±12.58（中位数，45.5；范围，21-75）。医生网站的 JAMA 平均得分最高，为 3.07±1.16，医院网站的 DISCERN 平均得分最高，为 52.85±12.66。所选网站中有两个带有 HONcode 印章。医生、医院和未指定网站的 JAMA 平均得分明显高于学术和商业网站（均 P<0.001）。医院网站的 DISCERN 平均得分明显高于学术网站（P=0.007）、商业网站（P<0.001）和未指定网站（P=0.017）。可读性评估产生了 51.57±12.04 的平均 FRES 得分，代表 10-12 年级的阅读水平，8.20±1.70 的平均 FKGL 得分，代表 8-10 年级的阅读水平。仅发现 12 个来源符合≤6 年级的目标阅读水平。总体 DISCERN 得分与总体 FRES 得分之间未发现显著相关性。
研究结果表明，网上关于 IVC 过滤器的信息质量不尽如人意，特别是学术和商业网站必须提高其关于使用 IVC 过滤器的内容质量。考虑到 HONcode 不再作为标准化质量评估标记，建议开发和实施类似的认证工具，以认证在线患者信息。
