Accessibility, reliability, and usability of neurosurgical resources

OBJECTIVE Closing the knowledge gap that exists between patients and health care providers is essential and is facilitated by easy access to patient education materials. Although such information has the potential to be an effective resource, it must be written in a user-friendly and understandable manner, especially when such material pertains to specialized and highly technical fields such as neurological surgery. The authors evaluated the accessibility, usability, and reliability of current educational resources provided by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), Healthwise, and the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). METHODS Online neurosurgical patient education information provided by AANS, Healthwise, and NINDS was evaluated using the LIDA scale, a website quality assessment tool, by medical professionals and nonmedical professionals. A high achieving score is regarded as 90% or greater using the LIDA scale. RESULTS Accessibility scores were 76.7% (AANS), 83.3% (Healthwise), and 75.0% (NINDS). Average usability scores for the AANS, Healthwise, and NINDS were 73.3%, 82.6%, and 82.9%, respectively, when evaluated by medical professionals and 78.5%, 80.7%, and 75.9%, respectively, for nonmedical professionals, respectively. Average reliability scores were 58.5%, 53.3%, 72.6%, respectively, for medical professionals and 70.4%, 66.7%, and 78.5%, respectively, for nonmedical professionals when evaluating the AANS, Healthwise, and NINDS websites. CONCLUSIONS Although organizations like AANS, Healthwise, and NINDS should be commended for their ongoing commitment to provide health care-oriented materials, modification of this material is suggested to improve the patient education value.