What's Nissen on the net? the quality of information regarding Nissen fundoplication on the internet

Ace St John; Kendyl Carlisle; Mark Kligman; Stephen M Kavic

doi:10.1007/s00464-021-08895-z

What's Nissen on the net? the quality of information regarding Nissen fundoplication on the internet

Surg Endosc. 2022 Jul;36(7):5198-5206. doi: 10.1007/s00464-021-08895-z. Epub 2021 Nov 29.

Authors

Ace St John¹, Kendyl Carlisle¹, Mark Kligman², Stephen M Kavic³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Surgery, University of Maryland Medical Center, 29 South Greene Street, GS 631, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA.
² University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³ University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA. skavic@som.umaryland.edu.

PMID: 34845552
DOI: 10.1007/s00464-021-08895-z

Abstract

Background: More patients are turning to the internet for their health information than ever before. This is a growing problem as it is well recognized that medical information on the internet is highly variable. We assessed the quality of information on the internet regarding the anti-reflux procedure, Nissen Fundoplication. Three commonly used measures of website quality are the Health On the Net code, the Journal of the American Medical Association Benchmark criteria, and the DISCERN tool. The HON code is a seal of approval awarded by an independent organization where the JAMA Benchmark and DISCERN Tool are a set of standards that can be utilized by an internet user or webpage creator.

Methods: We performed a Google search using the term "Nissen Fundoplication", where we analyzed the top 75 websites. We included English language websites and excluded advertisements, websites for medical professionals, duplicates, and requiring a login. Each website included was evaluated for presence of the HON seal and scored with the JAMA Benchmark and DISCERN criteria to determine quality.

Results: Only 16.28% of websites were found to be HON code certified. The average JAMA benchmark score was 1.23, with 9.3% websites scoring the maximum 4 points and 39.53% receiving a score of 0. The average DISCERN score was 34.65 out of a total possible score of 75, where the mean score for the overall quality of the website (question 16) was 2.19 out of a maximal score of 5.

Conclusion: This study, using 3 commonly used validated measures, has found that the quality of online information pertaining to Nissen Fundoplication is sorely lacking. The implications of these results are twofold as an important reference for institutions to update their source material and a guide when providing patients with adequate resources.

Keywords: DISCERN tool; General surgery; HON code; JAMA Benchmark; Nissen fundoplication; Quality of Online information.

MeSH terms

Benchmarking
Consumer Health Information*
Fundoplication*
Humans
Internet