Surfing the Net--information on the World Wide Web for persons with arthritis: patient empowerment or patient deceit?
Surfing the Net--information on the World Wide Web for persons with arthritis: patient empowerment or patient deceit?
复制标题
上网冲浪——万维网上为关节炎患者提供的信息：患者授权还是患者欺骗？
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2001
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Marlene Dorgan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Maria E Suarez;C. Kendall;Marlene Dorgan
客观的
OBJECTIVE
In the past few years access to the Internet has become readily available. Patients are increasingly seeking and obtaining health information through the Internet, most often the World Wide Web (WWW). We assessed the content, authorship, and scope of the information available on WWW in relation to rheumatoid arthritis.
METHODS
In an attempt to replicate use by the average person, a broad search of the Internet was conducted for the phrase "rheumatoid arthritis" using WebCrawler, a commonly used search engine. All the "hits" were critically assessed after visiting and collecting information from the respective Web sites in relation to relevance, scope, authorship, type of publication, and financial objectives.
RESULTS
The search returned 537 hits. We evaluated 531-2 did not exist, 2 could not be contacted, one was not in English, and one required a membership to access. The 531 hits originated from 388 Web sites. Only 198 (51%) were considered to be relevant and 7 (2%) were of doubtful relevance. Thirty-four (17%) were posted by an individual, 57 (28%) by a nonprofit organization, 104 (51%) by a profit industry, and 10 (5%) by universities. Ninety-one (44%) promoted alternative therapies, the most common including cetyl-myristoleate, colloidal minerals, Pycnogenol, shark cartilage, and Tahitian Noni. Of the 107 sites with financial interests, 76 (71%) promoted alternative medicine. The first 100 hits only identified about a third of the nonprofit organizations or university owned Web pages.
CONCLUSION
Many sites easily accessed by consumers appear to be profit based companies advertising an alternative product claimed to be effective for many conditions. These findings emphasize the need for critical evaluation of Web site contents.