P. H. Chang1,2, M. Paz3, P. H. Chang1,2 1Shriners Hospitals For Children-Boston,Boston, MA, USA 2Massachusetts General Hospital,Boston, MA, USA 3Northeastern University,Boston, MA, USA
Introduction:
The 2014 National Burn Repository Annual Report states that there were 191,848 reported cases of burn injuries in the United States last year. When injured, patients frequently use online searches to find out the initial treatment for their condition. In this study, 40 websites for burn treatment on two major search engines were identified. The content was analyzed on the accessibility, usability, reliability, and accuracy of the information.
Methods:
The phrases ‘burn treatment’, ‘burn first aid’, ‘burn care’, and ‘how to treat a burn’ were searched on Google and Bing on 2/11/2015 and 4/29/2015, and the top 10 results of each search was recorded. Out of the 40 articles recorded, there are a total of 24 unique articles for Google and 19 for Bing that were analyzed using the LIDA Instrument v.1.2 (Minervation, Ltd.). This instrument uses a series of questions to score the accessibility, usability, and reliability of health websites and then produces an overall rating for that website. Accessibility is defined as whether people can access your website, usability is how easy it is for users to find out the information they want to know, and reliability is whether the website keeps up to date with the best current knowledge. This instrument defines a good website as one that scores a 90% or higher, a moderate website has a score of 50-89%, and a bad website has a score below 50%. To analyze the accuracy of the websites a checklist was created using ABA referral criteria and expert opinion by a trained burn surgeon on treating burns.
Results:
Of the total 24 unique burn treatment websites identified in Google searches, four were from an ABA verified burn center or the ABA itself, the rest of the websites were from medical personnel or made by non medical consumer reports. The average accessibility score was 86% (63-98%), usability was 75% (42-92%), reliability was 64% (20-87%), and the average total score was 78% (62-91%). The average accuracy score for these websites was 55% (3-97%) , and only one of the websites was considered good.
The Bing search engine provided 19 different burn treatment websites. Only one was from an ABA verified burn center. The average accessibility score was 86% (59-98%), usability was 71% (42-92%), reliability was 62% (7-87%), and the average total score was 76% (41-91%).
Between both search engines there was an overlap of 12 websites. In total there were only 31 unique websites, out of these four (12.9%) were from an ABA verified burn center or the ABA itself. Consistently the top two searches were WebMD and Mayo Clinic. From the Google search there were three websites that were considered good, or had a total score of 0.90 or higher; the Bing search produced one good website.
Conclusion:
The majority of burn treatment information is posted online by non-burn surgical specialists. While most websites appear accessible the usability and reliability varies considerably.