Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
J Surg Res. 2024 Nov;303:652-662. doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2024.09.052. Epub 2024 Oct 22.
Online websites are a major source of educational material for patients undergoing thyroidectomy. We hypothesize that thyroidectomy websites have low quality and are written above the 6 grade readability recommendation.
A systematic literature review of studies evaluating readability and/or quality of thyroidectomy-informing, English-written websites was performed in November 2023 in three major online databases (Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science).
Ten out of 2017 initially screened studies met the inclusion criteria. All studies found websites' readability above the recommended 6th grade level. Quality was heterogeneously defined and evaluated by seven of the included studies. Nonetheless, all studies deemed most thyroidectomy websites quality as poor to fair.
Websites addressing thyroidectomy do not meet the recommended readability level for patient educational material. The heterogeneity of scoring and reporting of quality limits comparability. This study highlights the necessity of revising and modifying existing websites to adequately aid patient decision-making.
在线网站是甲状腺切除术患者主要的教育材料来源。我们假设甲状腺切除术网站质量较低，且其书写水平高于推荐的 6 年级阅读水平。
2023 年 11 月，我们在三大在线数据库（Embase、PubMed 和 Web of Science）中对评估甲状腺切除术相关、英文书写的网站可读性和/或质量的研究进行了系统的文献回顾。
最初筛选出的 2017 项研究中有 10 项符合纳入标准。所有研究均发现网站的可读性高于推荐的 6 年级水平。其中 7 项纳入研究对质量进行了异质性定义和评估。尽管如此，所有研究都认为大多数甲状腺切除术网站的质量较差或一般。
针对甲状腺切除术的网站不符合患者教育材料的推荐可读性水平。评分和报告质量的异质性限制了可比性。本研究强调了修订和修改现有网站以充分帮助患者做出决策的必要性。
