Your patient information website: how good is it?

Abstract

The study was designed to evaluate the accessibility, reliability and readability of information on familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) on the Web. We searched for the keywords 'familial adenomatous polyposis' using the three most popular search engines (Google™ Yahoo™, MSN™) and looked at the first 50 websites. The LIDA tool (an online validation instrument for healthcare websites) was used to assess their accessibility, usability and reliability. The readability of each document was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) score. We also checked whether each site was certified by the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode)--the oldest and most trustworthy code for medical and health-related information available on the Internet. Of the 150 possible sites, only 48 were analysed because of repetitions (52), irrelevant content (21) or inaccessible links (29). Nineteen were HONcode-certified. The mean LIDA and FRE scores for all websites were 62.59% (SD=10) and 32.9 (SD=16) respectively. HONcode-certified websites have slightly higher reliability scores than HONcode-uncertified websites (38.5%vs 36.2%). Good quality information on patients with FAP is difficult to obtain on the Internet. The websites analysed have alarmingly low reliability scores. The readability of their content is poor and they often do not appear among the top search results. There is a need to develop a clear, easily accessible and authoritative resource for patients with FAP.