Background
Patients are relying on the Internet with greater frequency to learn about diseases
and make medical decisions. We hypothesized that there is a disparity between the
perceptions of patients and those of surgeons regarding the quality of information
about primary hyperparathyroidism on the Internet.
Methods
Patients (n = 62) with primary hyperparathyroidism seen in endocrine surgery clinics in France
and the United States responded to a survey regarding their use of the Internet to
prepare for upcoming parathyroid surgery. A panel of endocrine surgeons reviewed the
top “hits” retrieved from Web sites related to parathyroid disease. Sites were rated
using a previously validated Web site quality scoring system.
Results
A total of 75% of the American cohort and 53% of the French cohort used the Internet
to prepare for parathyroid surgery. The majority of these patients reported that the
information was “somewhat to very accurate.” The panel of surgeons gave the Web sites
an overall average qualitative score of 8.6 (53%).
Conclusion
Surgeons and patients have different perceptions as to what constitutes a high-quality
Web site. As patients depend more on the Internet to prepare for parathyroid surgery,
there is an opportunity and a clear need to create comprehensive, high-quality, patient-oriented
Web sites on this topic.
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Article info
Footnotes
Presented at the 30th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, Madison, Wisconsin, May 2–5, 2009.
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Mosby, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
