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Wikipedia in Vascular Surgery Medical Education: Comparative Study
Michael Yacob1, Shamim Lotfi2, Shannon Tang1
1Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
JMIR Medical Education
|May 18, 2020
Summary
Wikipedia articles on vascular surgery are easier to read but lower quality and have more errors of omission than surgical textbooks. Textbooks are recommended as a primary learning resource for medical students.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Online Health Information
- Vascular Surgery
Background:
- Medical students frequently use Wikipedia for health information.
- The quality and readability of Wikipedia's vascular surgery articles are not well-established.
- Comparison with standard surgical textbooks is lacking.
Purpose of the Study:
- Compare Wikipedia article quality against a surgery textbook.
- Identify errors of omission in both resources.
- Assess and compare the readability of both resources.
Main Methods:
- Selected 8 vascular surgery topics based on Canadian medical licensing exams.
- Assessed Wikipedia articles and equivalent chapters in Schwartz Principles of Surgery.
- Evaluated readability using Flesch Reading Ease and grade-level scores.
- Assessed quality using the DISCERN instrument and errors of omission via a standardized system.
Main Results:
- Wikipedia articles were significantly easier to read (P=.03) but had a higher error of omission rate (P=.008).
- Surgical textbook chapters demonstrated significantly higher quality (P=.002) and fewer errors.
- Wikipedia articles had a lower mean grade level (14.2) compared to the textbook (15.9).
Conclusions:
- Standard surgical textbooks offer superior quality and accuracy for vascular surgery learning.
- Wikipedia's ease of reading makes it a useful quick reference but requires improvement for accuracy.
- Medical learners should prioritize textbooks for comprehensive and reliable vascular surgery education.
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