title: "What is Palliative Care?"
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Americans rely on the Internet for health information, and people are likely to turn to online resources to learn about palliative care as well. The purpose of this study was to analyze online palliative care information pages to evaluate the breadth of their content. We also compared how frequently basic facts about palliative care appeared on the Web pages to expert rankings of the importance of those facts to understanding palliative care.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-six pages were identified. Two researchers independently coded each page for content. Palliative care professionals (n = 20) rated the importance of content domains for comparison with content frequency in the Web pages.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We identified 22 recurring broad concepts about palliative care. Each information page included, on average, 9.2 of these broad concepts (standard deviation [SD] = 3.36, range = 5-15). Similarly, each broad concept was present in an average of 45% of the Web pages (SD = 30.4%, range = 8%-96%). Significant discrepancies emerged between expert ratings of the importance of the broad concepts and the frequency of their appearance in the Web pages ( rτ= .25, P > .05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study demonstrates that palliative care information pages available online vary considerably in their content coverage. Furthermore, information that palliative care professionals rate as important for consumers to know is not always included in Web pages. We developed guidelines for information pages for the purpose of educating consumers in a consistent way about palliative care.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA.
authors.forename: Elissa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kozlov
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Psychology, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA.
authors.forename: Brian D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Carpenter
mesh_terms: D054626:Consumer Health Information / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004608:Eligibility Determination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017051:Hospice Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007349:Insurance, Health, Reimbursement / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: palliative care; patient education; utilization