Nicole T Ansani|Molly T. Vogt|Bethany A. Fedutes Henderson|Theresa P. Mckaveney|Robert J. Weber|Randall B. Smith|Michelle Burda|C. Kent Kwoh|Thaddeus A. Osial|Terence W. Starz
Quality of arthritis information on the Internet
Pfizer (United States)|Rite Aid (United States)|University of Pittsburgh Medical Center|VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System
purpose quality reliability internetbased arthritis information studied methods search terms arthritis osteoarthritis rheumatoid arthritis entered aol msn yahoo google lycos search engines web sites first 40 matches generated search engine grouped url suffix evaluated basis four categories criteria disease medication information content website navigability required literacy level currentness information ratings assigned using assessment tool derived published literature maximum score 15 points results 600 arthritis web sites identified 69 unique included analysis fiftyseven percent com sites 20 org sites 7 gov sites 6 edu sites 10 sites total scores individual sites reviewed ranged 3 14 eighty percent gov sites 75 edu sites 29 sites 36 com sites 21 org sites within top tertile scores web site met criterion understandable people sixthgrade reading ability gov sites scored significantly higher overall com sites org sites sites edu sites also scored relatively well conclusion quality arthritis information internet varied widely sites urls suffixes gov edu ranked higher types sites