The Internet and patient education - Resources and their reliability: Focus on a select urologic topic

Objectives. The information revolution triggered by the rapid growth of the Internet has allowed healthcare providers and patients to access a rapidly expanding volume of information. To address the quality of this informatio n, a survey of the data on a single urology-related topic available on the Internet was performed. Methods. The search on the World Wide Web (Web) was performed using the sea rch engine HotBot and search directory Yahoo. The Web pages were assessed a ccording to their relevancy to the topic chosen. Relevance rates were deriv ed from the number of relevant sites divided by the total number of sites f ound. Relevant sites were subsequently ranked for quality on the basis of t heir accuracy, comprehensiveness, and objectivity. HotBot was then subseque ntly divided by domain, with each assessed separately. Yahoo was analyzed i n its entirety. The resources were then compared for relevance and quality of information. Results. When using the keyword "Viagra," HotBot responded with 15,109 hits . Yahoo presented 51 hits under the category, "Health: Pharmacy: Drugs and Medications: Specific Drugs and Medications: Viagra (Sildenafil)." The rele vance rate for the first 50 hits in the search engine HotBot was 0.08. The relevance rates for the edu and org domains found by HotBot were 0.22 and 0 .24, respectively; those for com and net were both 0.10. The relevance rate for the search directory Yahoo was 0.20. For relevant sites, the quality o f the information presented was significantly higher in the Yahoo and in th e HotBot domains hosted by nonprofit organizations when compared with HotBo t in general and with its commercially oriented domains. HotBot overall was found to contain seven excellent sites, of which only three were found wit hin Yahoo. Conclusions. Although the medical information available on the Web has prol iferated at a remarkable rate, the number of Web sites providing complete, nonbiased information continues to represent only a small portion of the to tal. We have shown that the search directory Yahoo reduced the number of ir relevant sites significantly, but at the same time, some very valuable info rmation available in HotBot was missing. At present, it may be useful to co nduct searches within Yahoo followed by a review of both the edu and org Ho tBot domains. UROLOGY 53: 1117-1120, 1999. (C) 1999, Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.