Assessing the quality, readability and reliability of online information on COVID-19: an infoveillance observational study

Objective: This study aimed to assess the quality, reliability and readability of internet-based information on COVID-19 available on Brazil most used search engines. Methods: A total of 68 websites were selected through Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The websites content quality and reliability were evaluated using the DISCERN questionnaire, the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria, and the presence of the Health on Net (HON) certification. Readability was assessed by the Flesch Reading Ease adapted to Brazilian Portuguese (FRE-BP). Results: The web contents were considered moderate to low quality according to DISCERN and JAMA mean scores. Most of the sample presented very difficult reading levels and only 7.4% displayed HON certification. Websites of Governmental and health-related authorship nature showed lower JAMA mean scores and quality and readability measures did not correlate to the webpages content type. Conclusion: COVID-19 related contents available online were considered of low to moderate quality and not accessible.