Reply

Abstract

We read with interest the article by van der Vaart et al published recently in Arthritis Care & Research (1) describing the information needs and support of patients with systemic sclerosis. This article partially recapitulated the results and conclusion made by us in a related study (2).Our study included 184 patients from different Spanish regions and with different autoimmune diseases, including systemic sclerosis (17.1%). Internet use for healthrelated purposes was similar among all studied patients, regardless of the pathology. The mean Ϯ SD age was 47.5 Ϯ 15.04 years, from which 72.8% were women. In total, 84% of subjects had searched the internet for information relating to their condition, a percentage similar to that reported by van der Vaart et al (1). The variables associated with internet use to find health information were age Ͻ56 years (odds ratio [OR] 5 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 2.5-9.9], P ϭ 0.000), being a regular internet user .2], P ϭ 0.000), having a college education (OR 5.5 [95% CI 2.9 -13.8], P ϭ 0.000), dissatisfaction with the information received by the regular doctor (OR 3.4 [95% CI 1.5-7.5], P ϭ 0.003), and belonging to a patient's association (OR 1.9 [95% CI 1-3.6], P ϭ 0.05). In our study, 20.7% of the patients thought information found on the internet was of limited use or of no use at all, and 31% did not know of any website with quality or accurate information about their disease. Van der Vaart et al did not evaluate the usefulness of the information found on the internet.It is well-known that the validity of some health-related websites is questionable, and there are no laws or regulations governing the accuracy of the information on the internet (3). Quality varies widely in the field of rheumatic diseases, and URLs with the .gov and .edu suffixes are generally better (4). Furthermore, many patients experience difficulties when interpreting the information and distinguishing between good and bad information (5). More than half of the patients (66.8%) wanted their physicians to inform them on quality websites.Similarly to van der Vaart et al (1), we consider it essential that physicians participate actively in the development of quality websites to ensure that patients have accurate information as well as to promote the development of interactive health communication applications as a tool for a better followup of our patients. Better-informed patients will be more adherent to the treatments prescribed by their physicians (6,7 Reply To the Editor:We were pleased to read the reaction of Ortego-Centeno et al on our article; it is interesting to see that their results on patients' online information use (1) agreed to such a large extent with our results. In one of our previous studies, among a broader sample of patients with differing rheumatic diseases, we also found similar results (2). In that study, 82% of our respondents indicated that they had searched for health-related information on the internet. These studies all suggest that the internet is an increasingly imp...