Qualidade da informação disponível on-line sobre sangramento uterino anormal

Abstract

Objective: The web and electronic devices with web access allowed greater speed of information, especially in the field of health. The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of current information related to abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB), available on the web, including that on the types of treatments suggested. Methods: Google Trends search for English terms most used on the web related to AUB. The identified descriptors were searched individually between June and December 2019 on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. The first 10 results of each descriptor were pre-selected and evaluated for inclusion and exclusion criteria. The selected websites were categorically divided into two independent groups: “News/Magazines” and “Academics”, and analyzed individually by three experts using DISCERN quality criteria (reliability, general quality and quality of information) and the presence or not of the seal HONcode®. Results: Of the 168 selected websites, 60.1% belonged to the “News/Magazines” group and 39.9% to “Academic” sites. Considering the total number of sites surveyed, 54.2% did not have a HONCode® quality seal. The “Academics” group had higher percentages of sites with information that definitely informed about AUB, compared to the results of the “News/Magazines” group. Greater reliability and quality of information was also observed in this group. There was no statistical difference regarding the “general quality” of the sites, regardless of the group and the presence of the HONCode® seal. In the general ranking, most sites were classified as moderate (70.8%) and low quality (28.6%). The HONCode® criterion proved to be a confounding factor in the analyzes, since the sites without this seal showed a significant association between the “site group” and the “quality of the site”. In addition, sites in the "News/Magazines" group were 6.7 times (OR = 6.7) more likely to be of low quality than sites in the "Academics" group, with the chance ranging from 2.1 to 21.4 times (OR between 2.1 to 21.4). Conclusion: The quality of information available on the web about AUB varies from low to moderate. “Academic” websites presented superior parameters of reliability and quality of information. The presence of the HONCode® seal was considered important to determine the quality of the content, especially for “News/Magazines” sites, which can help web users to identify websites with greater reliability. The development of algorithms and applications capable of categorizing the quality of information and the reliability of health content can be useful tools for users, helping to clarify symptoms, as in the case of AUB.