The diagnosis or suspicion of dental caries can lead people to seek additional information on the Internet through the use of structured queries in search engine tools. This action generates a considerable volume of data, which can be analyzed to provide a better understanding of the public's behavior linked to the consumption of oral health information. This study aimed to assess the volume and profile of web searches on dental caries-related queries performed by Google users from different countries. The monthly variation of the Search Volume Index (SVI) for dental caries was obtained in Google Trends for the period between January 2004 and September 2016. The validity of SVI data was assessed by their levels of stability and correlation with the disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for permanent teeth. In all countries, a trend of an increasing interest of Google users in dental caries issues was revealed by the comparison of the means observed in the predictive models and those in the last 12 months. The interest levels varied throughout the year, with the observation of the highest SVI values in the spring and the lowest in the summer. The most popular queries were markedly associated with symptoms and treatments, with a little interest in prevention. In conclusion, the use of Internet data mining could be helpful in establishing the dental needs of specific population groups in a near real-time, since the web consumption of dental information is increasing in importance and appears to have a direct relation with untreated dental caries.

BackgroundDental caries is the most common chronic oral disease, affecting 2.4 billion people worldwide who on average have 2.11 decayed, missing, or filled teeth. It impacts the quality of life of patients, socially and economically. However, the comprehension of dental caries may be difficult for most people, as it involves a multifactorial etiology with the interplay between the tooth surface, the dental biofilm, dietary fermentable carbohydrates, and genetic and behavioral factors. Therefore, the production of effective materials addressed to the education and counseling of patients for the prevention of dental caries requires a high level of specialization. In this regard, the dental caries-related contents produced by laypersons and their availability on the Internet may be low-quality information.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to assess the readability and the quality of dental caries-related information on Brazilian websites.MethodsA total of 75 websites were selected through Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Baidu. The websites were organized in rankings according to their order of appearance in each one of the 4 search engines. Furthermore, 2 independent examiners evaluated the quality of websites using the DISCERN questionnaire and the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria. The readability of the websites was assessed by the Flesch Reading Ease adapted to Brazilian Portuguese (FRE-BP). In addition, the information presented on the websites was categorized as etiology, prevention, and treatment of dental caries. The statistical analysis was performed using Spearman rank correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney U test, hierarchical clustering analysis by Ward minimum variance method, Kruskal-Wallis test, and post hoc Dunn test. P<.05 was considered significant.ResultsThe Web contents were considered to be of poor quality by DISCERN (mean 33.48, standard deviation, SD 9.06) and JAMA (mean 1.12, SD 0.97) scores, presenting easy reading levels (FRE-BP: mean 62.93, SD 10.15). The rankings of the websites presented by Google (ρ=−.22, P=.08), Baidu (ρ=−.19, P=.53), Yahoo! (ρ=.22, P=.39), and Bing (ρ=−.36, P=.23) were not correlated with DISCERN scores. Moreover, the quality of websites with health- and nonhealth-related authors was similar (P=.27 for DISCERN and P=.47 for JAMA); however, the pages with a greater variety of dental caries information showed significantly higher quality scores than those with limited contents (P=.009).ConclusionsOn the basis of this sample, dental caries-related contents available on Brazilian websites were considered simple, accessible, and of poor quality, independent of their authorship. These findings indicate the need for the development of specific policies focused on the stimulus for the production and publication of Web health information, encouraging dentists to guide their patients in searching for recommended oral health websites.

BACKGROUND Dental caries is the most common chronic oral disease, affecting 2.4 billion people worldwide who on average have 2.11 decayed, missing, or filled teeth. It impacts the quality of life of patients, socially and economically. However, the comprehension of dental caries may be difficult for most people, as it involves a multifactorial etiology with the interplay between the tooth surface, the dental biofilm, dietary fermentable carbohydrates, and genetic and behavioral factors. Therefore, the production of effective materials addressed to the education and counseling of patients for the prevention of dental caries requires a high level of specialization. In this regard, the dental caries-related contents produced by laypersons and their availability on the Internet may be low-quality information. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to assess the readability and the quality of dental caries-related information on Brazilian websites. METHODS A total of 75 websites were selected through Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Baidu. The websites were organized in rankings according to their order of appearance in each one of the 4 search engines. Furthermore, 2 independent examiners evaluated the quality of websites using the DISCERN questionnaire and the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria. The readability of the websites was assessed by the Flesch Reading Ease adapted to Brazilian Portuguese (FRE-BP). In addition, the information presented on the websites was categorized as etiology, prevention, and treatment of dental caries. The statistical analysis was performed using Spearman rank correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney U test, hierarchical clustering analysis by Ward minimum variance method, Kruskal-Wallis test, and post hoc Dunn test. P<.05 was considered significant. RESULTS The Web contents were considered to be of poor quality by DISCERN (mean 33.48, standard deviation, SD 9.06) and JAMA (mean 1.12, SD 0.97) scores, presenting easy reading levels (FRE-BP: mean 62.93, SD 10.15). The rankings of the websites presented by Google (ρ=−.22, P=.08), Baidu (ρ=−.19, P=.53), Yahoo! (ρ=.22, P=.39), and Bing (ρ=−.36, P=.23) were not correlated with DISCERN scores. Moreover, the quality of websites with health- and nonhealth-related authors was similar (P=.27 for DISCERN and P=.47 for JAMA); however, the pages with a greater variety of dental caries information showed significantly higher quality scores than those with limited contents (P=.009). CONCLUSIONS On the basis of this sample, dental caries-related contents available on Brazilian websites were considered simple, accessible, and of poor quality, independent of their authorship. These findings indicate the need for the development of specific policies focused on the stimulus for the production and publication of Web health information, encouraging dentists to guide their patients in searching for recommended oral health websites.