Quality of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Information on the Chinese Internet: Website Evaluation Study.

BACKGROUND

The development of internet technology has greatly increased the ability of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to obtain health information, giving patients more initiative in the patient-physician decision-making process. However, concerns about the quality of website health information will affect the enthusiasm of patients' website search behavior. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the current situation of Chinese internet information on COPD.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to evaluate the quality of COPD treatment information on the Chinese internet.

METHODS

Using the standard disease name "" ("chronic obstructive pulmonary disease" in Chinese) and the commonly used public search terms "" ("COPD") and "" ("emphysema") combined with the keyword "" ("treatment"), we searched the PC client web page of Baidu, Sogou, and 360 search engines and screened the first 50 links of the website from July to August 2021. The language was restricted to Chinese for all the websites. The DISCERN tool was used to evaluate the websites.

RESULTS

A total of 96 websites were included and analyzed. The mean overall DISCERN score for all websites was 30.4 (SD 10.3; range 17.3-58.7; low quality), no website reached the maximum DISCERN score of 75, and the mean score for each item was 2.0 (SD 0.7; range 1.2-3.9). There were significant differences in mean DISCERN scores between terms, with "chronic obstructive pulmonary disease" having the highest mean score.

CONCLUSIONS

The quality of COPD information on the Chinese internet is poor, which is mainly reflected in the low reliability and relevance of COPD treatment information, which can easily lead consumers to make inappropriate treatment choices. The term "chronic obstructive pulmonary disease" has the highest DISCERN score among commonly used disease search terms. It is recommended that consumers use standard disease names when searching for website information, as the information obtained is relatively reliable.