Mp68-20 quality and readability of online information about ureteral stents

You have accessJournal of UrologyStone Disease: Surgical Therapy IV1 Apr 2018MP68-20 QUALITY AND READABILITY OF ONLINE INFORMATION ABOUT URETERAL STENTS Sarah Mozafarpour, Briony Norris, James Borin, and Brian Eisner Sarah MozafarpourSarah Mozafarpour More articles by this author , Briony NorrisBriony Norris More articles by this author , James BorinJames Borin More articles by this author , and Brian EisnerBrian Eisner More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2018.02.2224AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to use validated instruments to evaluate the online information on ureteral stents in terms of quality and readability. METHODS Google.com was queried using the search terms derived from Google AdWords: “ureteric stent”, “ ureteral stent”, “ double J stent “ and, “Kidney stent”. Quality assessment was performed using the following criteria: 1-Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks (authorship, attribution, currency, and disclosure) and 2-Health on the Net (HON) criteria, and 3- a customized DISCERN questionnaire. The customized DISCERN questionnaire is a combination of short validated DISCERN questionnaire with additional stent-specific items. Scores related to stent items were considered as the “stent score” (SS). Two investigators independently analyzed each of the unique websites and the mean score was used. Popularity was evaluated using Alexa.com, an online resource for evaluating website popularlty, and readability was evaluated using commercially available readability tests which have have been previously studied and used in similar types of studies (Automated Readability index, Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch Kincaid, Fry, and Raygor tests). RESULTS The search strategy generated 206, 000 sites. Of the most popular 100 sites, thirty-two unique websites were included in the study while the remainder were excluded due to duplicate links, non-operating links, health professional targeted links and irrelevant links. Two websites (6.3%) had HON certification (drugs.com, radiologyinfo.org) and only one website (3.3%) met all JAMA criteria (bradurology.blogspot.com). Readability exceeded the American Medical Association recommendation of sixth-grade level for 75% of the websites (Fig 1). The mean customized DISCERN score and “stent score” were 24.7/59 and 14.6/24, respectively. There was no correlation between Google rank, Alexa rank and the quality scores – in other words, website popularity was NOT correlated with the accuracy or thoroughness of the information for a given website. (P = NS, Pearson's correlation). CONCLUSIONS Online information about ureteral stents has challenging readability, with 75% of sites reading at a higher level than is suggested by the AMA. In addition the accuracy of many of the top sites was questionable based on the DISCERN analysis. These findings suggest a need for improved online resources for patients who wish to research ureteral stents and also should inform physicians that popular web-based sites may have inaccurate information. © 2018FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 199Issue 4SApril 2018Page: e924-e925 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2018MetricsAuthor Information Sarah Mozafarpour More articles by this author Briony Norris More articles by this author James Borin More articles by this author Brian Eisner More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...