Quality of information on the Internet about carpal tunnel syndrome: an update

The use of the Internet for health-related information has increased significantly. In 2000, the current authors examined the source and content of orthopedic information on the Internet. At that time, Internet information regarding carpal tunnel syndrome was found to be of limited quality and poor informational value. The purposes of the current study were to reevaluate the type and quality of information on the Internet regarding carpal tunnel syndrome and to determine whether the quality of information available has improved compared with 1 decade ago. The phrase carpal tunnel syndrome was entered into the 5 most commonly used Internet search engines. The top 50 nonsponsored and the top 5 sponsored universal resource locators identified by each search engine were collected. Each unique Web site was evaluated for authorship and content, and an informational score ranging from 0 to 100 points was assigned. Approximately one-third of nonsponsored Web sites were commercial sites or selling commercial products. Seventy-six percent of sponsored sites were selling a product for the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome. Thirty-eight percent of nonsponsored sites provided unconventional information, and 48% of sponsored sites provided misleading information. Just more than half of nonsponsored sites were authored by a physician or academic institution. The informational mean score was 53.8 points for nonsponsored sites and 14.5 points for sponsored sites. The informational quality on the Internet on carpal tunnel syndrome has improved over the past decade. Despite this progress, significant room exists for improvement in the quality and completeness of the information available.