Alassaf Muath Saad, Bakkari Ayman, Saleh Jehad, Habeeb Abdulsamad, Aljuhani Bashaer Fahad, Qazali Ahmad A, Alqutaibi Ahmed Yaseen
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, King Fahad Hospital, Madina, Saudi Arabia.
College of Dentistry, Taibah University, Medina, Saudi Arabia.
PLoS One. 2025 Jan 24;20(1):e0312832. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0312832. eCollection 2025.
This study aimed to investigate the quality and readability of online English health information about dental sensitivity and how patients evaluate and utilize these web-based information.
The credibility and readability of health information was obtained from three search engines. We conducted searches in "incognito" mode to reduce the possibility of biases. Quality assessment utilized JAMA benchmarks, the DISCERN tool, and HONcode. Readability was analyzed using the SMOG, FRE, and FKGL indices.
Out of 600 websites, 90 were included, with 62.2% affiliated with dental or medical centers, among these websites, 80% exclusively related to dental implant treatments. Regarding JAMA benchmarks, currency was the most commonly achieved and 87.8% of websites fell into the "moderate quality" category. Word and sentence counts ranged widely with a mean of 815.7 (±435.4) and 60.2 (±33.3), respectively. FKGL averaging 8.6 (±1.6), SMOG scores averaging 7.6 (±1.1), and FRE scale showed a mean of 58.28 (±9.1), with "fair difficult" being the most common category.
The overall evaluation using DISCERN indicated a moderate quality level, with a notable absence of referencing. JAMA benchmarks revealed a general non-adherence among websites, as none of the websites met all of the four criteria. Only one website was HON code certified, suggesting a lack of reliable sources for web-based health information accuracy. Readability assessments showed varying results, with the majority being "fair difficult". Although readability did not significantly differ across affiliations, a wide range of the number of words and sentences count was observed between them.
本研究旨在调查在线英文牙齿敏感健康信息的质量和可读性，以及患者如何评估和利用这些基于网络的信息。
从三个搜索引擎获取健康信息的可信度和可读性。我们以“隐身”模式进行搜索，以减少偏差的可能性。质量评估采用了《美国医学会杂志》基准、DISCERN工具和健康在线基金会标准。使用烟雾指数（SMOG）、弗莱什阅读容易度指数（FRE）和福勒-金凯德年级水平指数（FKGL）分析可读性。
在600个网站中，90个被纳入研究，其中62.2%与牙科或医疗中心有关联，在这些网站中，80%专门涉及牙种植治疗。关于《美国医学会杂志》基准，时效性是最常达到的，87.8%的网站属于“中等质量”类别。单词数和句子数范围广泛，平均分别为815.7（±435.4）和60.2（±33.3）。FKGL平均为8.6（±1.6），SMOG分数平均为7.6（±1.1），FRE量表平均为58.28（±9.1），“中等难度”是最常见的类别。
使用DISCERN进行的总体评估表明质量水平中等，明显缺乏参考文献。《美国医学会杂志》基准显示网站普遍未遵守，因为没有一个网站符合所有四项标准。只有一个网站获得了健康在线基金会标准认证，这表明基于网络的健康信息准确性缺乏可靠来源。可读性评估结果各异，大多数为“中等难度”。尽管不同关联机构之间的可读性没有显著差异，但它们之间的单词数和句子数差异很大。
