Female urinary incontinence health education on the Internet: pitfalls and opportunities

The prevalence and demographics of urinary incontinence (UI) in Canada demand new initiatives to provide both health education and care to the growing number of incontinent women. The Internet, and the Web sites on it, offer an opportunity to provide information on female UI health to patients, health-care professionals, and other caregivers in a time and location convenient to them. Internet usage in Canada is increasing, and women are more likely than men to access Web health information. However, problems such as access to reliable health information do exist, as the quality of Web sites and the information on them varies from excellent to poor. Potential quality control mechanisms include codes of conduct, quality labels, user guides, and filtering systems, but there is uncertainty about which method is best. As the Internet precipitates a shift in care toward prevention of disease, and enhancement of health, a new role for health professionals emerges: to educate patients about and guide them to wise use of the Internet.