Adherence by orthopaedic surgeons to AHPRA and Australian Orthopaedic Association advertising guidelines

To examine adherence to Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and Australian Orthopaedic Association (AOA) advertising guidelines by AOA members.

Cross-sectional survey, Australia.

Two samples of AOA member orthopaedic surgeons: 81 randomly selected from a list of AOA members with publicly available contact details (AOA random sample); and a sample obtained by searching with Google for "orthopaedic surgeon" and the name of the major city in each of the eight Australian states and territories in turn; the top eight results for each search were considered for inclusion (AOA Google sample).

Non-compliance of advertising material, by surgeon sample, with the AHPRA and AOA guidelines; associations between non-compliance and sample, state, location (metropolitan, regional), and subspecialty.

Of the 81 surgeons in the AOA random sample, 52 (64%) were non-compliant with at least one aspect of the AHPRA guidelines, and 53 (65%) were non-compliant with at least one aspect of the AOA guidelines. Of the 59 surgeons in the AOA Google sample, 48 were non-compliant with the AHPRA guidelines (81%) and 46 with the AOA guidelines (78%). Incidence of non-compliance with the AHPRA guidelines was influenced by sample source (AOA Google v AOA random: incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.37; 95% CI, 1.01-1.87), but not non-compliance with the AOA guidelines (IRR, 1.09; 95% CI, 0.77-1.55).

A large proportion of AOA members who advertise online do not comply with AHPRA and AOA advertising guidelines.