[Quality assessment of information about female urinary incontinence from French speaking websites]

Abstract

Objectives: An increasing number of patients look for medical information on Internet, and find hardly accurate answers to their questions. The objective of this study was to assess the quality of information about urinary incontinence on free access Web-sites.

Material and methods: A search using the most used search engines in French speaking countries and key words given by patients located 24 Web-sites on female urinary incontinence to review. A general description of each site was done. Then a specially designed assessment scale, whose criteria were extracted from a literature review and from practice guidelines for the management of female urinary incontinence, was used by two reviewers to assess each Web-site content.

Results: Three key terms (urinary incontinence, urine loss, urine leak) were used on three search engine (Google, Yahoo, Voila) and the first 10 Web-sites located for each search were analyzed. The mean score was low (7.92 (+/-3.1) range 0-24, maximum 24) and only four sites received the "highly recommended" mention.

Conclusions: This study using medical evidence-based criteria to assess the quality content of French speaking Web-sites about female urinary incontinence highlights the poor quality of information available for Internet "typical users". Doctors should play a greater role in evaluating these sites and/or developing their quality.