ArticleCureus2025
Assessing the Quality and Readability of Online Patient Information for Common Proctological Conditions.
Article in Cureus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background Haemorrhoids, anal fissures, and anal fistulae are common benign proctological conditions that heavily rely on self-management strategies to prevent morbidity. Online access to various treatment options has empowered patients in this regard. This study was conducted to assess the quality and readability of the available online information. Methods An online search using the Google search engine (Google, Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA) was carried out with the following terms: 'Treatment of Haemorrhoids', 'Treatment of Anal Fissure', and 'Treatment of Anal Fistula'. For each search term, the first 25 webpages developed for patient education were included. Thus, a total of 75 webpages were analysed for their quality using the DISCERN instrument and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks. Their readability was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), and the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG). Results Across the three search terms, the average overall DISCERN score was 2.4 ± 0.8 (out of five), suggesting moderate to low-quality information. Only 16 (21%) webpages fulfilled all four JAMA benchmark criteria for quality. An average FRES score of 57.6 ± 9.0 indicated that the text was fairly difficult to read. FKGL and SMOG index levels of 8.0 ± 1.6 and 10.7 ± 1.0, respectively, correspond to the reading age range of 13- to 16-year-olds. Conclusion Available online information for patients with common proctological complaints is of suboptimal quality and is fairly difficult to read. It is essential to ensure that the information available meets high-quality standards and is readable by patients.
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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.