Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: Evaluation of Web-Based Information

Introduction Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC), the gold standard treatment for symptomatic gallstone disease, is the most common procedure performed by general surgeons worldwide. The internet remains to be a popular source of medical information. Our aim was to evaluate the quality and readability of information available on the web for patients undergoing LC and to compare the information provided by the National Health Service (NHS) and non-NHS websites.  Methods We searched for the keywords 'laparoscopic cholecystectomy' using the three most popular search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) and looked at the first 50 websites only. The readability of each document was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) score. We checked Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode) certification status, whether the sites had been checked by an expert and when the information was last updated. Results Fifty-five of the possible 150 sites were analysed thus excluding repetitions (n=65), irrelevant content (n=26) or inaccessible links (n=3). Only seven of those were HONcode-certified. The mean FRE score was 46 (range 0-68, SD=16.13). There were 13 NHS sites and 42 non-NHS sites. The mean FRE score for the NHS sites was significantly better compared to the non-NHS sites [58.31 (SD=5.01) vs 42.21 (SD=16.35); p=0.001]. Fifty-four per cent (54%) of the analysed websites had been checked by a medical expert and 22% were updated within the last year. Conclusions This study highlights the poor quality and readability of information on medical websites. The information provided by NHS sites have significantly better readability compared to non-NHS sites.