ArticleCureus2025
Assessment of the Quality and Readability of Online Information on Thumb-Sucking Habit in Children.
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
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimThis study aimed to evaluate the quality and readability of online information on thumb-sucking habits among children, using the DISCERN instrument, Health on the Net (HON) seal, and Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks.
methodsA systematic search was conducted on Google, Yahoo, and Bing for "thumb-sucking habit". A total of 450 websites were screened; irrelevant content, duplicates, and heavily commercial or video-only sites were excluded, resulting in 143 sites. The DISCERN tool, with 16 questions rated from 1 to 5, assessed information quality, while the HON seal verification checked for HON compliance. JAMA benchmarks evaluated authorship, attribution, disclosure, and currency, and readability was assessed using Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, and SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook).
resultsThe DISCERN mean score value was 2.73 (±0.57) out of 5, indicating moderate quality. Most sites were non-profit (86.01%), followed by commercial (7.69%), and university/medical centres (6.29%). DISCERN highlighted strengths in relevance and balance but weaknesses in source citations and references. Only 12 sites displayed a HON seal. Readability varied: university/medical centres scored the highest, whereas commercial websites, despite showing relatively higher DISCERN scores, had lower readability, making the information less accessible to the general public.
conclusionThis study revealed that online information on thumb sucking is of moderate quality, with notable differences across website types. Clinicians should guide patients toward non-profit and HON-certified sites for more reliable resources. Enhancing transparency, citation practices, and readability remains essential to support informed health decisions regarding thumb-sucking habits.
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.