Alabdulmohsen Dalal M, Almahmudi Mesa A, Alnajjad Ahmed I, Almarzouq Adnan M
Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, SAU.
Endocrinology, Dr. Sulaiman Al-Habib Hospital, Al-Khobar, SAU.
Cureus. 2024 Jul 19;16(7):e64880. doi: 10.7759/cureus.64880. eCollection 2024 Jul.
Osteoporosis is a prevalent metabolic bone disease in the Middle East. Middle Easterners rely on the Internet as a source of information about osteoporosis and its treatment. Adequate awareness can help to prevent osteoporosis and its complications. Websites covering osteoporosis in Arabic must be of good quality and readability to be beneficial for people in the Middle East.
Two Arabic terms for osteoporosis were searched on Google.com (Google Inc., Mountainview, CA), and the first 100 results for each term were examined for eligibility. Two independent raters evaluated the websites using DISCERN and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) criteria for quality and reliability. The Flesch Kincaid grade level (FKGL), Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), and Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) scale were used to evaluate the readability of each website's content.
Twenty-five websites were included and evaluated in our study. The average DISCERN score was 28.36±12.18 out of 80 possible scores. The average JAMA score was 1.05±1.15 out of four total scores. The readability scores of all websites were, on average, 50.71±21.96 on the FRE scale, 9.25±4.89 on the FKGL, and 9.74±2.94 on the SMOG. There was a significant difference (p = 0.026 and 0.044) in the DISCERN and JAMA scores, respectively, between the websites on the first Google page and the websites seen on later pages.
The study found Arabic websites covering osteoporosis to be of low quality and difficult readability. Because these websites are a major source for patient education, improving their quality and readability is a must. The use of simpler language is needed, as is covering more aspects of the diseases, such as prevention.
骨质疏松症是中东地区一种常见的代谢性骨病。中东人依赖互联网作为有关骨质疏松症及其治疗的信息来源。充分的认知有助于预防骨质疏松症及其并发症。以阿拉伯语涵盖骨质疏松症的网站必须具备良好的质量和可读性，才能对中东地区的人们有益。
在谷歌网站（谷歌公司，加利福尼亚州山景城）上搜索骨质疏松症的两个阿拉伯语术语，并检查每个术语的前100个搜索结果是否符合条件。两名独立评分者使用DISCERN以及美国医学会杂志（JAMA）的质量和可靠性标准对这些网站进行评估。使用弗莱什-金凯德年级水平（FKGL）、简明语言衡量标准（SMOG）和弗莱什阅读简易度（FRE）量表来评估每个网站内容的可读性。
本研究纳入并评估了25个网站。在可能的80分中，DISCERN平均得分为28.36±12.18分。在总共四分中，JAMA平均得分为1.05±1.15分。所有网站的可读性得分平均在FRE量表上为50.71±21.96分，在FKGL上为9.25±4.89分，在SMOG上为9.74±2.94分。谷歌第一页上的网站与后面页面上的网站在DISCERN和JAMA得分上分别存在显著差异（p = 0.026和0.044）。
该研究发现，以阿拉伯语涵盖骨质疏松症的网站质量较低且可读性差。由于这些网站是患者教育的主要来源，提高其质量和可读性势在必行。需要使用更简单的语言，同时也需要涵盖疾病的更多方面，如预防。
