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A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE QUALITY OF PATIENT INFORMATION ON MEDICAL TREATMENT OF CROHN'S DISEASE AND ULCERATIVE COLITIS ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB

M Langille, C Rodgers, A Bernard, S Veldhuyzen van Zanten
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

BACKGROUND: Increasing numbers of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) use the internet to obtain health information on treatment of their disease.
STUDY AIM: To perform a systematic review on the quality of educational information on treatment of IBD for patients available on the Web.
METHODS: Medical treatments evaluated were: 5-ASA, corticosteroids, azathioprine/6-MP, infliximab and other immune suppressants. A Quality Evaluation Instrument (QEI) was developed and pretested which covered indications, efficacy and common or serious side-effects. The maximum possible QEI score was 101. A global overall quality score (1-5) and reading grade level was also given.
RESULTS: The top 50 sites retrieved by Google were evaluated by two independent raters. seven sites were excluded because they were Web portals. The average global score was 2.1, two sites received a score of 5, and two sites a score of 4. The average QEI was 36 (range 0 to 96), six sites received a score of ³70 and 13 sites received score ³50. The average Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level was 11.4, ranging from 6.9 to 12.0. Only 24 sites gave a date when the site was last updated. Only 23 sites disclosed the funding source.
CONCLUSION: The quality of information on treatment available for IBD patients on the Web shows marked variation and only a small number of sites achieve high quality scores. There is an urgent need for accreditation of Web sites that provide balanced information about treatment for IBD.

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