Online Information on the Treatment of Burning Mouth Syndrome: Quality and Readability

Abstract

Aims: the aims of this study were to evaluate the quality and readability of online information regarding the treatment of BMS. Methods: An Internet search using the phrase 'burning mouth syndrome treatment' was carried out on the Google search engine (www.google.co.uk) on June 8 th 2015. The first 100 websites listed were then examined. Data collection included DISCERN score, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks for website analysis score, the presence of the Health on the Net (HON) seal and the Flesch Reading Ease Score. Descriptive statistics were performed using Microsoft Office Excel. Results: The search strategy initially yielded 635,000 links and following the application of the exclusion criteria 53 sites remained for analysis. The overall DISCERN score varied between websites, with half of all websites achieving an overall score of 2 and none of these websites achieving the maximum score of 5 (2.4 ± 0.7). Only 18.9% (10) of the websites achieved the four JAMA benchmarks while 5.7% (3) of the websites had not achieve any of them. Nine of the 53 assessed websites (17%) displayed the HON seal. The Flesch Reading Ease scores (FRES) of the websites ranged between 32.4 and 82.2. The mean rating was 55.4 (±10.7), which is considered to reflect fairly difficult reading. Conclusion: In conclusion, the information available online regarding BMS is of questionable quality and content. Perhaps engaging patients in determining what type and format of information they desire when searching online for health information could guide clinicians and researchers alike in providing such reliable and readable information sources.

Burning mouth syndrome—a diagnostic dilemma

“…Reassuringly when checking Google for causes of 'burning tongue and lips', the most common symptom reported in our patients, BMS is the first diagnosis offered. In a recent article evaluating the quality of web based material pertaining to the treatment of BMS the authors concluded that the reliability of the online information was questionable [18].…”

“…The higher the score, the more anxiety and or depression reported by the patients [11]. On the basis of their scores, individuals can be categorised into three score ranges that indicate the severity of the states; 'normal' (0-7), 'borderline abnormal' (8-10) and 'abnormal' (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21).…”

“…With regard to HADS the median anxiety score was 13 (interquartile range 7 -17) and the median depression score was 10 (interquartile range 5 -16). Figure 1 demonstrates the number of patients in each of the HADS defined anxiety and depression severity states -'normal' (0-7), 'borderline abnormal' (8-10) and 'abnormal' (11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21). Correlations between anxiety and depression scores generated and the number of clinicians seen along with the time to diagnosis is represented in Table 3.…”

Web-based information on the treatment of the mouth in systemic sclerosis

“…Thus, online information could be misleading or inaccurate and hence hinder informed shared clinical decision making [ 9 , 10 ]. In addition, poor quality information can limit the ability of a patient with chronic illness to cope with their disease [ 11 ].…”

Die Rolle des Internets für Gesundheitsinformationen in der Hals-Nasen-Ohrenheilkunde

“…This corresponds to a significant distance to the optimal score of 80 so that at best an average quality of online available information can be confirmed. A HON certificate was only found in 0-30.6 % of the analyzed internet pages [103,111,122,133,134,136,138]. An overview about the studies on ENT-specific diseases is found in ▶ table 2, an overview about the procedures is given in ▶table 3.…”