References that anyone can edit: review of Wikipedia citations in peer reviewed health science literature

A wiki is a collaborative Web site, such as Wikipedia, that can be freely edited. Because of a wiki's lack of formal editorial control, we hypothesized that the content would be less complete and accurate than that of a professional peer-reviewed Web site. In this study, the coverage, accuracy, and readability of cancer information on Wikipedia were compared with those of the patient-orientated National Cancer Institute's Physician Data Query (PDQ) comprehensive cancer database. For each of 10 cancer types, medically trained personnel scored PDQ and Wikipedia articles for accuracy and presentation of controversies by using an appraisal form. Reliability was assessed by using interobserver variability and test-retest reproducibility. Readability was calculated from word and sentence length. Evaluators were able to rapidly assess articles (18 minutes/article), with a test-retest reliability of 0.71 and interobserver variability of 0.53. For both Web sites, inaccuracies were rare, less than 2% of information examined. PDQ was significantly more readable than Wikipedia: Flesch-Kincaid grade level 9.6 versus 14.1. There was no difference in depth of coverage between PDQ and Wikipedia (29.9, 34.2, respectively; maximum possible score 72). Controversial aspects of cancer care were relatively poorly discussed in both resources (2.9 and 6.1 for PDQ and Wikipedia, respectively, NS; maximum possible score 18). A planned subanalysis comparing common and uncommon cancers demonstrated no difference. Although the wiki resource had similar accuracy and depth as the professionally edited database, it was significantly less readable. Further research is required to assess how this influences patients' understanding and retention.

Background Podcasts are increasingly being used in medical education. In this study, we conducted a survey of Canadian anesthesia residents to better delineate the content needs, format preferences, and usage patterns among anesthesia residents. Methods 10/16 Canadian anesthesia program directors, representing 443/659 Canadian anesthesia residents, allowed their residents to be included in the study. 169/659 (24%) residents responded to our survey. A 17-item survey tool developed by the investigators was distributed by email eliciting information on patterns of podcast use, preferred content, preferred format, and podcast adjuncts perceived to increase knowledge retention. Results 60% (91/151) had used medical podcasts with 67% of these users spending up to 1 hour per week on podcasts. 72.3% of respondents selected ‘ability to review materials whenever I want’ was selected by the majority of respondents (72%) as the reason they found podcasts to be valuable. No clear preference was shown for audio, video, or slidecast podcasts. Physiology (88%) and pharmacology (87%) were the most requested basic science topics while regional anesthesia (84%), intensive care (79%) and crisis resource management (86%) were the most requested for procedural, clinical and professional topics respectively. Respondents stated they would most likely view podcasts that contained procedural skills, journal article summaries and case presentations and that were between 5-15 minutes in duration A significantly greater proportion of senior residents (81%) requested podcasts on ‘pediatric anesthesia’ compared to junior residents 57% (P = 0.007). Conclusions The majority of respondents are using podcasts. Anesthesia residents have preferred podcast content, types, length and format that educators should be cognizant of when developing and providing podcasts.

The Internet is the largest source of health information and is widely used by inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. As information is largely unregulated, our objective was to evaluate the quality, readability, accuracy, and accessibility of the information concerning IBD available on the World Wide Web. The phrases "inflammatory bowel disease," "Crohn's disease," and "Ulcerative Colitis" were entered separately as search terms into the 6 most commonly used search engines. Sites were categorized as institutional, pharmaceutical, nonpharmaceutical commercial sites, charitable, support, or alternative medicine. Websites were evaluated for content quality using the validated DISCERN rating instrument. Readability was graded by the Flesch Reading Ease and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score. Of the 76 websites evaluated by DISCERN, 43% of the sites were rated as excellent to good and 57% as fair to poor. Alternative medicine sites scored significant lower (P > 0.05) than institutional, pharmaceutical, and nonpharmaceutical commercial sites. There was no relation between a rating score and the position of a website on the search engine ranking. The median Flesch Reading Ease Score was 41.65 (range, 2.6-77.7) and 11.85 (range, 6.2-21.1) for the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. The quality of websites containing information on IBD varies widely. Most of the online material available is too difficult to comprehend for a substantial portion of the patient population, and good quality information may be beyond reach of the average information seeker. Copyright © 2009 Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America, Inc.