ArticleInternational dental journal2025
Quality and Readability Assessment of Patient-Centered Online Information on Apical Surgery.
Article in International dental journal, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION AND
aimsNowadays, patients seek medical information online. Patient-oriented content must be easy to read and trustworthy. This study aimed to assess the quality and readability of online information about apical surgery and apicoectomy in English and Spanish.
methodsThe authors performed the following systematic searches on Google in February 2023: "apicoectomy", "apicectomía", "apical surgery", and "cirugía apical". The first 100 websites of each query were selected. English readability was assessed using Flesch-Kincaid Reading Grade Level, Flesch Reading Ease Score, Gunning Fog Index, Coleman-Liau Index, Automated Readability Index and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook Index. The Fernández-Huerta Index and INFLESZ were used to assess Spanish readability. Quality was measured using the DISCERN tool.
resultsA total of 165 sites were included in total. Readability for English-language sites ("apical surgery" and "apicoectomy") was categorised as "fairly difficult to read" [FRES (apical surgery) = 54.7; FRES (apicoectomy) = 54.3]. Similarly, Spanish sites ("cirugía apical" and "apicectomía") were classified as "relatively difficult to read". Overall, the DISCERN tool showed a low average quality of information for all terms analysed.
conclusionEnglish and Spanish online information about apical surgery is difficult for the average patient to understand and presents significant quality deficiencies. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The Internet is a powerful tool for communicating with patients, but available apical surgery information is difficult for laypersons to understand and has a low overall quality. To overcome this issue, endodontists should produce high-quality, patient-relevant materials in plain language.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.