Quality and Readability of Online Information on Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Objective

The aim of this study was to investigate the readability and reliability of online content related to cerebral palsy (CP) and to classify sites that contain quality and readable information.

Method

On April 30, 2022, the term “cerebral palsy” was searched on the Google search engine. The categories, quality, content, readability, Alexa rank values, and backlink numbers of the sites were analyzed. The Journal of American Medical Association score and HONcode seal were used for quality assessment, and the Flesch–Kincaid grade (FKG) and the Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG) were used for readability assessment.

Results

Of the 155 sites, 46 had high-quality content. The quality of health portal and scientific publishing sites appeared to be high. The top 10 sites were determined to be of significantly higher quality (p = .017) than the remaining sites. The average readability values of the sites were not at the recommended level.

Conclusion

Despite the abundance of information available on CP-related websites, most of them were not of high quality. Additionally, many websites did not reach the recommended readability levels. Revision of existing online content related to CP and production of new high-quality content in line with readability recommendations is urgently required.

Keywords:

• Cerebral palsy
• online information
• quality
• readability

Ethics statement

Since there was no experiment or intervention on any human or animal in the study, no ethics committee application was made.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability  statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author [MHT] upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Mustafa Hüseyin Temel

Mustafa Hüseyin Temel, MD ([email protected]) is at the Clinic of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Üsküdar State Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey.

Sevilay Batıbay

Sevilay Batıbay, MD ([email protected]) is at the Clinic of Rheumatology, Goztepe Prof. Dr. Suleyman Yalçın City Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.

Fatih Bağcıer

Fatih Bağcıer ([email protected]) is an Associate Professor at the Clinic of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Istanbul Başakşehir Çam and Sakura City Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey.