ArticleJMIR cardio2018
Quality of Medical Advice Provided Between Members of a Web-Based Message Board for Patients With Implantable Defibrillators: Mixed-Methods Study.
Article in JMIR cardio, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pediatric Subspecialist Referrals to Peer Support for Families.Maternal and child health journal · 2025Article
- The Information Needs and Experiences of People Living With Cardiac Implantable Electronic Devices: Qualitative Content Analysis of Reddit Posts.JMIR cardio · 2023Article
- Exploring Resource-Sharing Behaviors for Finding Relevant Health Resources: Analysis of an Online Ovarian Cancer Community.JMIR cancer · 2022Article
- The quality of informational social support in online health communities: A content analysis of cancer-related discussions.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPatients use Web-based medical information to understand medical conditions and treatments. A number of efforts have been made to understand the quality of professionally created content; however, none have described the quality of advice being provided between anonymous members of Web-based message boards.
objectiveThe objective of this study was to characterize the quality of medical information provided between members of an anonymous internet message board addressing treatment with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD).
methodsWe quantitatively analyzed 2 years of discussions using a mixed inductive-deductive framework, first, for instances in which members provided medical advice and, then, for the quality of the advice.
resultsWe identified 82 instances of medical advice within 127 discussions. Advice covered 6 topical areas: (1) Device information, (2) Programming, (3) Cardiovascular disease, (4) Lead management, (5) Activity restriction, and (6) Management of other conditions. Across all advice, 50% (41/82) was deemed generally appropriate, 24% (20/82) inappropriate for most patients, 6% (5/82) controversial, and 20% (16/82) without sufficient context. Proportions of quality categories varied between topical areas. We have included representative examples.
conclusionsThe quality of advice shared between anonymous members of a message board regarding ICDs varied considerably according to topical area and the specificity of advice. This report provides a model to describe the quality of the available Web-based patient-generated material.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.