ArticleThe world journal of men's health2024
Patient-Directed Vasectomy Information: How Readable Is It?
Article in The world journal of men's health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 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
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Quality and Readability Analysis of Artificial Intelligence-Generated Medical Information Related to Prostate Cancer: A Cross-Sectional Study of ChatGPT and DeepSeek.The world journal of men's health · 2026Article
- Benchmarking the performance of large language models in uveitis: a comparative analysis of ChatGPT-3.5, ChatGPT-4.0, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude3.Eye (London, England) · 2025Article
- Large Language Models May Help Patients Understand Peer-Reviewed Scientific Articles About Ophthalmology: Development and Usability Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Can AI chatbots accurately answer patient questions regarding vasectomies?International journal of impotence research · 2024Article
- Assessing Current Interest, Knowledge, and Inquiries About Vasectomies in Urology Patients and Medical Students.Cureus · 2023Article
- Public Perceptions of Vasectomy in China: A Social Media Content Analysis of User-Generated Narratives on Rednote.American journal of men's 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
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo assess the quality and readability of online health information on vasectomy using validated readability and quality assessment tools. MATERIALS AND
methodsThe top 50 search results for "vasectomy" on Google, Bing, and Yahoo were selected. Duplicate links, advertisements, blog posts, paid webpages, and information intended for healthcare providers were excluded. Flesch Reading Ease score, Flesch-Kincaid Grade level, Gunning Fog Index, and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) index were used to assess readability, with optimal readability level for online health information established as being at sixth grade reading level. DISCERN Instrument and JAMA Benchmark were used to assess the quality of selected webpages. Inter-assessment score correlation and results by webpage type were analyzed.
resultsWe analyzed 44 webpages, including 16 academic, 5 hospital-affiliated, 6 commercial, 13 non-profit health advocacy, and 4 uncategorized sources. The average readability of the evaluated webpages was at a 10th grade reading level as measured by the Flesch Kincaid Assessment tool, and an undergraduate reading level per the SMOG and Gunning Fog indices. Non-profit health advocacy webpages had the best reading level but still was not at the recommended level of grade 6 to 7. The overall DISCERN quality of the webpages was "fair", with non-profit health advocacy pages performing best.
conclusionsThe assessed webpages offer education on vasectomy in a language that is too complex for the general population to understand. Furthermore, several sources for online health information, such as non-profits, outperformed webpages by academic institutions. Increased healthcare collaboration and dedication to producing quality online patient resources is necessary to address these shortcomings and build trust among patients to increase utilization of vasectomy and decrease decisional regret.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.