Affiliations: [a] Center for Global Health and Development and Department of Health Services Research and Administration, College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA | [b] Center for Language Studies, Yale University, Cambridge, MA, USA | [c] Department of Information Systems, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Ashish Joshi M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor, Center for Global Health and Development and Department of Health Services Research Administration, College of Public Health, UNMC, 984385 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68198, USA. Tel.: +1 402 559 2237; Fax: +1 402 559 2330; E-mail: ashish.joshi@unmc.edu.
Abstract: Internet has provided patients with a new source of variable medical information. Osteoporosis is a major public health concern and providing patients with accurate information regarding diseases and treatment is an essential component of medical care. The primary objective of this study was to assess the quality of Internet based nutrition information for osteoporosis patients. The search items “osteoporosis”, “diet”, “nutrition”, and “bone loss” were entered into the five most consulted search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL and Lycos. The first 20 website matches generated by each search engine were 400 and grouped together by URL (uniform resource locators) suffix. 326 websites were excluded from the study as they had insufficient information, nonfunctioning links, websites not in English and duplicate websites. Of the remaining 74 sites, 64% were .Com sites followed by 18% .Org sites. .Org websites received the highest interface and content scores. Raters with healthcare and technical background rated the website interface and quality of content on the internet differently and this could be largely due to different training of the two raters and the manner in which they perceived the content. Health information websites should take into account the users' diverse backgrounds when presenting content to consumers.
