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The quality of orthodontic practice websites
1Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Senior House Officer, Department of Oral Surgery, UCLH Eastman Dental Hospital (UCLH NHS Foundation Trust), 256 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8LD.
Objective:
To evaluate orthodontic practice websites for the reliability of information presented, accessibility, usability for patients and compliance to General Dental Council (GDC) regulations on ethical advertising.
Setting:
World Wide Web.
Materials And Methods:
The term 'orthodontic practice' was entered into three separate search engines. The 30 websites from the UK were selected and graded according to the LIDA tool (a validated method of evaluating healthcare websites) for accessibility, usability of the website and reliability of information on orthodontic treatment. The websites were then evaluated against the GDC's Principles for ethical advertising in nine different criteria.
Results:
On average, each website fulfilled six out of nine points of the GDC's criteria, with inclusion of a complaints policy being the most poorly fulfilled criteria. The mean LIDA score (a combination of usability, reliability and accessibility) was 102/144 (standard deviation 8.38). The websites scored most poorly on reliability (average 43% SD 11.7), with no single website reporting a clear, reliable method of content production. Average accessibility was 81% and usability 73%.
Conclusions:
In general, websites did not comply with GDC guidelines on ethical advertising. Furthermore, practitioners should consider reporting their method of information production, particularly when making claims about efficiency and speed of treatment in order to improve reliability.
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