title: Analysis of chats on French internet forums about drugs and pregnancy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Some pregnant women use the internet to search for medical information. However, online information is not controlled. The objectives were to describe French online chats about drugs and pregnancy and evaluate the quality and reliability of information shared by internet users.
  
  
  METHODS
  This French descriptive study was performed in November 2012. In order to identify drugs and pregnancy-related forum websites, we used three French key words: forum, pregnancy and drug. We explored the first 10 websites from the search result. Diseases were described using the International Classification of Diseases and drugs classified with the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical codes and the FDA risk classification.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We selected 115 questions that were mainly posted by pregnant internet users in French forums. Drugs raising questions were mostly "nervous system," "anti-infective for systemic use" and "respiratory system" drugs. The risk during pregnancy for nearly half of these drugs had not been evaluated properly. Health professionals were only involved in 7% of the 214 answers. Internet users advised to take a drug in 21% of their answers. Thirty-four percent of those recommended drugs had not been well-evaluated or were potentially at risk during pregnancy. Finally, 12% of the answers could be at risk for pregnant woman.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study shows that information related to drugs and pregnancy in online chats could be at risk for pregnant women. Internet users must be aware that online forums are not reliable sources of information.
authors.affiliation: Service de Pharmacologie Médicale et Clinique, Centre Midi-Pyrénées de Pharmacovigilance de Pharmaco-épidémiologie et d'Informations sur le médicament, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse, Toulouse, France.
authors.forename: Lucie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Palosse-Cantaloube
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Lacroix
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rousseau
authors.forename: Haleh
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bagheri
authors.forename: Jean-Louis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Montastruc
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Damase-Michel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D066275:Health Information Exchange / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D020407:Internet; D011247:Pregnancy; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012651:Self Medication
keywords: forum; internet; medication; pharmacoepidemiology; pregnancy