title: A comparison of the quality of the information available on the internet on interventional radiology, vascular surgery, and cardiology.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Internet use is rapidly expanding and increasingly plays a substantial role in patient education. We sought to evaluate and compare the quality of information available to patients online on three closely linked specialties: Interventional radiology (IR), cardiology, and vascular surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched the leading three search engines for the terms: "Interventional Radiology", "cardiology," and "vascular surgery," collating the top 50 hits from each search. After excluding duplicates and irrelevant sites, 43, 25, and 36 sites remained, respectively. Sites were analyzed using the LIDA instrument (an online tool for assessing health-related websites) and Fleisch Reading Ease Scores (FRES) were compared across the different search terms and correlated with the country of origin and certification by the Health on the Net (HON) Foundation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no significant difference ( P>0.05) in the total LIDA, accessibility, usability or reliability scores between the three specialties. HONCode certification was associated with higher LIDA (83.1±1.6 vs. 71.53±0.8 ( P<0.0001)), reliability (75.7±3.6 vs. 49.0±1.6 ( P<0.0001)) and FRES (37.4±4.0 vs. 29.7±1.4 ( P=0.0441)).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Websites are generally well designed and easy to use; the majority however, lacks currency and reliability. Despite similarity in quality of online information, there is a disparity in knowledge of IR; this may be due to low web-traffic figures of IR sites. Wikipedia's user-generated content, ranks highly in major search engines, as such; this could serve as means of disseminating reliable health information to patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Interventional Radiology, Imperial College, St. Mary's Hospital, Praed Street, London W2 1NY, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alsafi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kaya
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Hamady
mesh_terms: D002309:Cardiology; D054626:Consumer Health Information / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D020407:Internet; D015642:Radiology, Interventional; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057386:Search Engine; D014656:Vascular Surgical Procedures