Evaluation of Medical Information on Male Sexual Dysfunction on Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia: Comparative Study

Abstract

Background Sexual dysfunction is a private set of disorders that may cause stigma for patients when discussing their private problems with doctors. They might also feel reluctant to initiate a face-to-face consultation. Internet searches are gradually becoming the first choice for people with sexual dysfunction to obtain health information. Globally, Wikipedia is the most popular and consulted validated encyclopedia website in the English-speaking world. Baidu Encyclopedia is becoming the dominant source in Chinese-speaking regions; however, the objectivity and readability of the content are yet to be evaluated. Objective Hence, we aimed to evaluate the reliability, readability, and objectivity of male sexual dysfunction content on Wikipedia and Baidu Encyclopedia. Methods The Chinese Baidu Encyclopedia and English Wikipedia were investigated. All possible synonymous and derivative keywords for the most common male sexual dysfunction, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and their most common complication, chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome, were screened. Two doctors evaluated the articles on Chinese Baidu Encyclopedia and English Wikipedia. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) scoring system, DISCERN instrument, and Global Quality Score (GQS) were used to assess the quality of disease-related articles. Results The total DISCERN scores (P=.002) and JAMA scores (P=.001) for Wikipedia were significantly higher than those of Baidu Encyclopedia; there was no statistical difference between the GQS scores (P=.31) for these websites. Specifically, the DISCERN Section 1 score (P<.001) for Wikipedia was significantly higher than that of Baidu Encyclopedia, while the differences between the DISCERN Section 2 and 3 scores (P=.14 and P=.17, respectively) were minor. Furthermore, Wikipedia had a higher proportion of high total DISCERN scores (P<.001) and DISCERN Section 1 scores (P<.001) than Baidu Encyclopedia. Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia both had low DISCERN Section 2 and 3 scores (P=.49 and P=.99, respectively), and most of these scores were low quality. Conclusions Wikipedia provides more reliable, higher quality, and more objective information than Baidu Encyclopedia. Yet, there are opportunities for both platforms to vastly improve their content quality. Moreover, both sites had similar poor quality content on treatment options. Joint efforts of physicians, physician associations, medical institutions, and internet platforms are needed to provide reliable, readable, and objective knowledge about diseases.

Assessment of medical information on irritable bowel syndrome information in Wikipedia and Baidu Encyclopedia: comparative study

“…Most providers came from unregistered individuals in the past, whose contributions often lack references, in-depth information, and quality in the Baidu Encyclopedia. We also found only one advertising link on the two web pages, and the article content was objective and scientific, this is superior to the previous report: more than 25 irrelevant advertising links on a Baidu Encyclopedia web page, and the article was biased and unscientific ( Ma et al, 2022 ). This improvement might be a result of the Baidu Encyclopedia “rainbow plan”, which restricts the editing and revision of medical entries to certified medical experts ( Beijing News, 2023 ).…”

“…However, online information quality about IBS varies widely ( Levine et al, 2020 ). A total of 3%–89% of the retrieved IBS content was found to be relevant to IBS ( Cruz et al, 2019 ), with similar problems in the health contents in Wikipedia ( Levine et al, 2020 ) and the Baidu Encyclopedia ( Ma et al, 2022 ). Wikipedia excels in accuracy, breadth, depth, and informativeness for GI diseases (containing IBS, GD, BD, and AD), which is displayed in Figs.…”

“…A score of 63–80 means excellent quality, 51–62 indicates good quality, 39–50 is fair quality, and 16–38 indicates poor quality results ( Charnock et al, 1999 ). We set the cutoff value at 3 for each question, based on previous research, a score above 3 (60%) indicated good quality ( Ma et al, 2022 ). The JAMA scoring system assesses the quality of health-related websites based on four criteria: author, attribution, disclosure, and currency.…”

Quality of Cerebral Palsy-Related Videos on Chinese Social Media Platforms

“…However, this study has some limitations. The tools employed, namely JAMA, GQS, and DISCERN, are primarily used in the assessment of the quality of medical information and may have constraints when applied to the context of family-based CP rehabilitation [52,53]. Furthermore, our analysis focused solely on Chinese videos within mainland China, potentially neglecting pertinent videos in other languages, thereby introducing regional and cultural biases to the study outcomes.…”

Utilizing ChatGPT-4 for Providing Information on Periodontal Disease to Patients: A DISCERN Quality Analysis

“…In addition, when the DISCERN instrument was evaluated according to its sections, the 'reliability' and 'overall quality' sections had scores reflecting the 'good' level, while the 'treatment choices' section had a score reflecting the 'fair' level mostly. In other words, if we accept 'score 3' as a threshold value [ 18 , 29 ], we can talk about the fact that the information source for the 'treatment choices' section was poor because it had an average score below this value. For the other two sections, it can be stated that the information source had minimal shortcomings in the context of patient education since they showed an average score above this value.…”