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Disparity in online health information in pediatric vs. adult surgical conditions

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Abstract

Background

Although the quality of online health information (OHI) for adult surgical conditions is well described, the availability of quality OHI for pediatric surgical conditions, and the comparison to that of adult surgical OHI, remains undefined.

Methods

Medical and lay terms for 15 pediatric and 15 adult surgical conditions were searched using Google in English. The Health on the Net Foundation, a non-governmental OHI accreditation body, designates approval for quality websites. We compared the role of patient population while controlling for disease incidence (pediatric vs. adult), term complexity (medical vs. lay), and order (earlier vs. later listing of websites) on availability of quality OHI among the first 100 websites for each term.

Results

Among the first 100 websites, the adjusted mean number of quality websites was 11.80 for pediatric vs. 17.92 for adult medical search terms, and 13.27 for pediatric vs. 18.20 for adult lay search terms (P < 0.05 for all). Term complexity did not affect quality, and earlier appearing results were more likely to be of high quality.

Conclusion

Availability of quality pediatric surgical OHI lags behind that of adult surgical OHI, even when controlling for disease incidence. These findings highlight the potential need for increased quality OHI in pediatric surgery.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Marie Gabrielle Dee for assistance with proofing the manuscript, and Gabriel B. Borja for statistical advice.

Funding

The authors received no funding to conduct this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Edward C. Dee, Nathan H. Varady, Jeffrey N. Katz & Terry L. Buchmiller

  2. Orthopaedic and Arthritis Center for Outcomes Research (OrACORe), Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Division of Rheumatology, Immunology and Allergy, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Jeffrey N. Katz

  3. Department of Pediatric Surgery, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Terry L. Buchmiller

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Correspondence to Terry L. Buchmiller.

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Edward C. Dee declares that he has no conflict of interest. Nathan H. Varady declares that he has no conflict of interest. Jeffrey N. Katz declares that he has no conflict of interest. Terry L. Buchmiller declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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Dee, E.C., Varady, N.H., Katz, J.N. et al. Disparity in online health information in pediatric vs. adult surgical conditions. Pediatr Surg Int 35, 813–821 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00383-019-04451-y

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