Fifteen-year trend in information on the World Wide Web for patients with rheumatoid arthritis: evolving, but opportunities for improvement remain.
The aim of this study was to assess the changes in the characteristics of rheumatoid arthritis information on the Internet over a 15-year period and the positioning of Web sites posted by universities, hospitals, and medical associations. We replicated the methods of a 2001 study assessing rheumatoid arthritis information on the Internet using WebCrawler. All Web sites and pages were critically assessed for relevance, scope, authorship, type of publication, and financial objectives. Differences between studies were considered significant if 95 % confidence intervals did not overlap. Additionally, we added a Google search with assessments of the quality of content of web pages and of the Web sites posted by medical institutions. There were significant differences between the present study's WebCrawler search and the 2001-referent study. There were increases in information sites (82 vs 36 %) and rheumatoid arthritis-specific discussion pages (59 vs 8 %), and decreases in advertisements (2 vs 48 %) and alternative therapies (27 vs 45 %). The quality of content of web pages is still dispersed; just 37 % were rated as good. Among the first 300 hits, 30 (10 %) were posted by medical institutions, 17 of them in the USA. Regarding readability, 7 % of these 30 web pages required 6 years, 27 % required 7-9 years, 27 % required 10-12 years, and 40 % required 12 or more years of schooling. The Internet has evolved in the last 15 years. Medical institutions are also better positioned. However, there are still areas for improvement, such as the quality of the content, leadership of medical institutions, and readability of information.
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Jose Dionisio
JD
Castillo-Ortiz
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Jose
J
de Jesus Valdivia-Nuno
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Andrea
A
Ramirez-Gomez
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Heber
H
Garagarza-Mariscal
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Carlos
C
Gallegos-Rios
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Gabriel
G
Flores-Hernandez
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Luis
L
Hernandez-Sanchez
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Victor
V
Brambila-Barba
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Jose Juan
JJ
Castaneda-Sanchez
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Zalathiel
Z
Barajas-Ochoa
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Angel
A
Suarez-Rico
Vicerrectoría Académica, Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Avenida Patria 1201, Col. Lomas del Valle, 45129, Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico.
Jorge Manuel
JM
Sanchez-Gonzalez
Unidad de Investigacion en Enfermedades Cronico-Degenerativas, Colomos 2292, Providencia, 44620, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. r_ramos@prodigy.net.mx.|Vicerrectoría Académica, Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, Avenida Patria 1201, Col. Lomas del Valle, 45129, Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico. r_ramos@prodigy.net.mx.
Cesar
C
Ramos-Remus
D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid; D032882:Comprehension; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D020407:Internet
Health literacy; Internet; Patient education; Readability; Rheumatoid arthritis; World Wide Web