Quality and Content of Online Patient Resources for Celiac Disease

Patient-directed information on celiac disease has been reported to be of variable quality. We assessed the quantity and quality of information on blogs and Web sites intended to inform the layperson of celiac disease information.

We performed a cross-sectional study analyzing celiac disease blogs and Web sites intended for the layperson. We searched from 20 cities, resulting in 55 Web sites. These sites were analyzed for 38 criteria that considered relevant clinical information for people with celiac disease. Claims were classified as true, false, or not proven. The readability level of each Web site was determined.

The 55 Web sites were categorized as national organizations, personal blogs, recipe-based blogs, or commercial/marketing Web sites. Only 40% of Web sites contained more than 50% of criteria. Of 212 claims assessed, 97% were found to be accurate. National organizations included the most criteria, followed by recipe-based blogs, then personal blogs, and lastly commercial/marketing Web sites. Additionally, national organizations had the highest proportion of accurate claims, followed by personal blogs, then commercial/marketing Web sites, and recipe-based blogs with the most inaccurate information. The average readability level of overall was 9.7, above the recommended readability level for patient education materials.

A significant number of online claims regarding celiac disease were true, but the majority of patient-facing Web sites are missing large amounts of relevant information. This warrants efforts to improve the quality of medical information published online.