Quality-of-life research on the Internet: feasibility and potential biases in patients with ulcerative colitis.
OBJECTIVE
The World Wide Web (WWW) is a new communications medium that permits investigators to contact patients in nonmedical settings and study the effects of disease on quality of life through self-administered questionnaires. However, little is known about the feasibility and, what is more important, the validity of this approach. An on-line survey for patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and patients whose UC had been treated with surgical procedures was developed. To understand how patients on the WWW might differ from those in practice and the potential biases in conducting epidemiological research in volunteers recruited on the Internet, post-surgery patients who responded to the WWW survey were compared with those in a surgical practice.


METHODS
The Internet and private practice surgical clinic.


RESULTS
Scores from the Short form 36 (SF-36) Health Assessment Questionnaire and the Self-Administered Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (IBDQ).


RESULTS
Over a 5-month period, 53 post-surgery patients enrolled in the Internet study; 47 patients from a surgical clinic completed the same computer-based questionnaire. Surgically treated patients on the WWW were younger than their clinic counterparts (median age category 35-44 years vs. 45-54 years, p = 0.01) but more ill with a lower summary IBDQ score (168 vs. 186, p = 0.019) and lower health status across almost all dimensions of the SF-36 (p = 0.016).


CONCLUSIONS
It is feasible to conduct epidemiological research on the effects of UC on quality of life on the Web; however, systematic differences in disease activity between volunteer patients on the WWW and "in the clinic" may limit the applicability of results.
Soetikno
R M
RM
Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA.
Mrad
R
R
Pao
V
V
Lenert
L A
LA
D000328:Adult; D015982:Bias; D003093:Colitis, Ulcerative / Q000145:classification / Q000601:surgery*; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires