JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Diagnosis of Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) can take seven to ten years and has a long and complicated disease course. Many individuals may turn to online resources to gather information about their condition. While online resources can promote greater shared decision making and improve communication between patients and physicians, poor quality and low readability of websites can mislead patients with incorrect information.

Objective:

This study’s aim was to evaluate the quality and readability of HS websites found on Google and Bing in order to identify reliable, well-written resources that could help patients better understand their condition.

Methods:

The DISCERN Instrument and Flesch-Kincaid Readability metrics were used to evaluate the quality and readability of HS websites.

Results:

Google and Bing had average DISCERN scores of 54.05 and 59.83, respectively. Ten of the websites were either written or reviewed by a physician. Websites written or reviewed by physicians had statistically significant higher DISCERN scores (p = .018). The average reading grade level for Google was 10.78 ± 2.40, while the average for Bing was 10.48 ± 1.87. The NIH recommends that medical information be written at a 6th to 7th grade reading level. Of the ten articles written or reviewed by physicians, half of those articles met this criterion (Table 5).

Conclusions:

This study highlights the variable quality and readability of HS websites available on Google and Bing. Additionally, it provides websites that meet both high-quality standards and the NIH-recommended reading grade level.