Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jan 3, 2020
Date Accepted: Dec 17, 2020
Evaluation of liver disease information on Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia: A three-year follow-up study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The Internet had changed the way people acquiring health information. Previous studies have found that Wikipedia was a reasonably reliable medical resource and ranked higher in search engines than general websites. Baidu Encyclopedia is one of the most popular encyclopedia websites in China. However, no data concerning the quality of the Baidu Encyclopedia are yet available.
Objective:
This study aimed to evaluate the quality of liver disease information provided by English Wikipedia and Chinese Baidu Encyclopedia and to perform a comparison of the quality and timeliness between them. Moreover, a three-year follow-up was conducted to compare whether the network information improved over the period.
Methods:
We searched English Wikipedia and Chinese Baidu Encyclopedia with liver diseases on ICD-10 version 2016 codes. The quality of articles was assessed by using the DISCERN instrument. We recorded the latest editing date of the web page and calculated the date interval to evaluate the update timeliness of the website.
Results:
We got 22 articles in Baidu Encyclopedia and 15 articles in Wikipedia in 2016, and 25 articles in Baidu Encyclopedia and 16 articles in Wikipedia in 2019, respectively. The total DISCERN scores of Baidu Encyclopedia were significantly lower than that of Wikipedia (33.68 ± 2.265 vs 44.67 ± 3.172 P = 0.0089 in 2016; 34.72 ± 1.943 vs 46.44 ± 2.669 P = 0.0013 in 2019). The update interval of Baidu Encyclopedia is significantly longer than that of Wikipedia (571.6 ± 74.96 N=22, 55.93 ± 11.92 N=15, P < 0.0001 in 2016; 1067 ± 131.2 N=25, 27.44 ± 11.98 N=16, P < 0.0001 in 2019).
Conclusions:
The article quality about liver disease in Wikipedia is better than Baidu Encyclopedia. Wikipedia is updated more frequently than Baidu Encyclopedia to keep the information current. In order to find accurate health information, people are suggested to seek the help of medical professionals instead of looking for a prescription amid the confusing information on the Internet.
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