The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery 82:1540 (2000)
© 2000 The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Inc.
Evaluating the Source and Content of Orthopaedic Information on the Internet
The Case of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome*
Pedro K. Beredjiklian, M.D. ,
David J. Bozentka, M.D.,
David R. Steinberg, M.D. and
Joseph Bernstein, M.D., M.S.
Investigation performed at the Hand Surgery Section, Department
of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine,
and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
*No benefits in any form have been received or will be received
from a commercial party related directly or indirectly to the subject
of this article. No funds were received in support of this study.
Hand Surgery Section, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University
of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, One Cupp Pavilion, Presbyterian
Medical Center, 39th and Market Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
19104. E-mail address for P. K. Beredjiklian: pedrob{at}mail.med.upenn.edu
E-mail address for D. J. Bozentka: bozentka@mail.med.upenn.edu.
Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, 424 Stemmler Hall,
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104. E-mail
address: orthodoc@mail.med.upenn.edu.
Background: The Internet has become a popular
source of medical information for patients. Authors of health-related
web pages are not required to adhere to any standard for medical
content or accuracy. The goal of the present study was to assess
the type, quality, and reliability of information about carpal tunnel syndrome
that is available on the Internet.
Methods: The search phrase "carpal tunnel syndrome"
was entered into five commonly used World Wide Web search engines.
The search results then were given as an ordered list of universal
resource locators, or web-site addresses. The top (first) fifty web
sites from each of the five searches were combined to create a master
roster of 250 web-site addresses. These web sites then were evaluated
for authorship and content, and an informational value score ranging
from 0 to 100 points was assigned to each.
Results: Thirty-three percent of the sites sold
commercial products for the evaluation or treatment of carpal tunnel
syndrome. An additional 30 percent were commercial web sites that
did not sell products. Only 23 percent of the sites were authored
by a physician or an academic organization. Fewer than half of the
sites offered conventional information. Twenty-three percent of
the sites offered unconventional or misleading information. The
mean informational value of the web sites was 28.4 of a possible
100 points.
Conclusions: The information about carpal tunnel
syndrome on the Internet is of limited quality and poor informational
value. The public and the medical communities need to be aware of
these limitations so that the quality of medical information available
on the World Wide Web can be improved.
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