Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jan 10, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 14, 2019 - Feb 27, 2019
Date Accepted: Mar 3, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Credibility, accuracy and comprehensiveness of Internet-based information about low back pain: a systematic review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
Low back pain (LBP) affects millions of people worldwide, and misconceptions about effective treatment options for this condition are very common. As the Internet has become the primary source of health information for many people.
Objective:
To determine the credibility, accuracy and comprehensiveness of treatment recommendations for LBP in non-commercial, freely accessible websites.
Methods:
We conducted a systematic review of websites from Government agencies, consumer organizations, hospitals, non-governmental organizations, professional associations, and universities. We conducted searches on Google. Treatment recommendations were coded based on the 2016 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines and the 2017 American College of Physicians guideline on LBP. Primary outcomes were the credibility of the website (4-item Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Benchmark), accuracy (proportion of website treatment recommendations that were appropriate) and comprehensiveness of website treatment recommendations (proportion of guideline treatment recommendations that were appropriately covered by a website).
Results:
We included 79 websites from six English-speaking countries. In terms of credibility, 21.5% of websites clearly disclosed that they had been updated after the publication of the NICE guidelines. Only 487 out of 1125 (43.2%) website treatment recommendations judged as accurate. Comprehensiveness of treatment recommendations correctly covered by websites was very low across all types of LBP. For acute LBP, an average of 4 out of 14 guideline recommendations (28.6%) were correctly covered by websites. Websites for radicular LBP were the least comprehensive, correctly covering an average of 2.3 out of 14 recommendations (16.4%).
Conclusions:
Non-commercial, freely accessible websites demonstrated low credibility standards, provided mostly inaccurate information and lacked comprehensiveness across all types of LBP.
Citation
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