ABS: Hellawell, "Urology and the Internet: an evaluation of Internet use by urology patients and of information available on urological topics"

[Gretchen Whitney]

TITLE           Urology and the Internet: an evaluation of Internet use by
urology patients and of information available on urological topics
AUTHOR  Hellawell GO, Turner KJ, Le Monnier KJ, Brewster SF
JOURNAL BJU INTERNATIONAL 86: (3) 191-194 AUG 2000

 Document type: Article    Language: English    Cited References: 11
Times Cited: 0


Abstract:
Objective To determine the use of the Internet by urological patients for
obtaining information about their disease, and to conduct an evaluation of
urological
websites to determine the quality of information available.

Patients and methods Questionnaires about Internet use were completed by 180
patients attending a general urological outpatient clinic and by 143
patients
attending a prostate cancer outpatient clinic, The Internet evaluation was
conducted by reviewing 50 websites listed by the Hotbot(TM) search engine
for
two urological topics, prostate cancer and testicular cancer, and recording
details such as authorship, information content, references and information
scores,

Results Of the patients actively seeking further information about their
health, 19% of the general urological outpatient group and 24% of the
prostate cancer
group used the Internet to obtain this information. Most websites were
either academic or biomedical (62%), provided conventional information
(95%), and
were not referenced (71%). The information score (range 10-100) was 44.3 for
testicular cancer and 50.7 for prostate cancer: the difference in scores was
not significant.

Conclusion The use of the Internet by patients is increasing, with >20% of
urology patients using the Internet to obtain further information about
their
health. Most Internet websites for urological topics provide conventional
and good quality information. Urologists should be aware of the need to
familiarize
themselves with urological websites. Patients can then be directed to
high-quality sites to allow them to educate themselves and to help them
avoid misleading
or unconventional websites.

Author Keywords:
Internet, World Wide Web, website, search engine, information score, patient
education

KeyWords Plus:
WEB

Addresses:
Hellawell GO, Churchill Hosp, Dept Urol, Oxford OX3 7LJ, England.
Churchill Hosp, Dept Urol, Oxford OX3 7LJ, England.

Publisher:
BLACKWELL SCIENCE LTD, OXFORD

IDS Number:
345GK

ISSN:
1464-4096

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