Background: Patientsoften have misconceptions about the appropriateness of an Apiceptomy, partly due to poor quality information on the Internet. Clinical consequences include a patient's false expectations of preserving a tooth that is of a poor prognosis or conversely the loss of a tooth that had the potential to be saved. Aim: To assess the quality of information available for patients on Apicectomy. Materials and methods: We conducted a quality assessment of online information relating to Apicectomies using the DISCERN instrument. Results: Fifteen websites met the inclusion criteria, of which one had 'good' quality, seven were of 'fair' quality, and seven had 'poor' quality. Furthermore, no websites were of 'excellent' or 'very poor' quality. Conclusions: Our results are in line with the literature demonstrating poor quality online health information. Furthermore, we find that websites authored by dentists do not have a superior quality to those with unspecified authors. We propose that practitioners can adopt a proactive role. For example, Wikipedia was the first search result, yet was of 'poor quality'. Due to Wikipedia being a user-generated website, practitioners can revise its content to enhance the quality of information. Such action may lead to better-informed patients, more dynamic doctor-patient relationship, and reduction in the gap between the expectations of patients and realities of Apicectomy outcomes.
Clinical relevance Scientific rationale for studyApicectomy is a procedure that most patients have not had previous experience of, neither personal nor second hand. Patients are susceptible to misleading information when using the Internet to gain information. The quality of this information is therefore important to be scrutinised.
Principal findingsA total of 15 websites met the inclusion criteria, of which none were of excellent quality and seven were of poor quality.
Practical implicationsIt is of utmost important to ascertain patients' understanding of Apicectomy and understand why misconceptions may arise. These must be dispelled in order to allow informed patient consent and realistic expectations.Oral Surgery 10 (2017) e35--e39.
This study aims to address the increasingly complex medical predicament of low quality online health information contributing to lay health knowledge and consequently to clinical outcomes. We situate the predicament within a social change paradigm of individualism, choice, diminishing medical power, and emergence of the legitimacy of lay health knowledge. We contend that the prominence of lay health knowledge has been facilitated by the internet, and is due to a surge in broadcasting of experiential knowledge coupled with increased access to and enactment of medical and non-medically sanctioned online information on health and illness. We draw on and further test the application of social closure theory to help conceive a potential solution to this enduring problem. We conduct a quality assessment of an indicative case study, Apicectomies, and test the application of our notion of soft closure on its findings, resulting in targeted, feasible and potentially beneficial solutions to increasing the medical quality of online health information. We further present the extant application of soft closure by Healthtalkonline.org, which collates a medically reliable set of experiential knowledge on a range of health issues. As such, we propose a constructive re-enactment of the traditional closure of the medical profession on medical knowledge.
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Abstract word count: 201
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