Background/Purpose: The Internet can support remote and immediate access to health information. It is the second most consulted information source next to physicians. Google is the preferred search engine. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of currently available websites with content about rheumatoid arthritis.

Methods: We performed an environmental scan of the currently available rheumatoid arthritis education information on the World Wide Web. Three separate search engines were used: Google Advanced, Bing, and Ask.com. The term “rheumatoid arthritis” was used as the search word. The first 100 results were reviewed in each engine and separated in domains (e.g., .gov, .edu, .com, .org). Only patient education websites were included. Two independent investigators collected data regarding type of information provided, design, literacy levels (evaluated using the Flesch Grade Level readability formula), conflicts of interest, and accuracy and currency of information.

Results: We identified 36 websites. All websites provided information about the definition and prevention (disease and flare-ups) of rheumatoid arthritis. Most included material about epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment options but not enough information about prognosis, and complications. Eighty-six percent of the websites had a static design. Reading levels ranged from 6.6 to 16.6 (mean 11.5), which is higher than the governmental recommendation of 6th grade maximum readability level for patient education material. The majority of the included websites did not provide disclosure statements and only 8.3% of the websites clearly stated to be non-profitable. References were provided by 52.8% of the websites, the rest did not report sources of information. Only 36.1% were updated to 2014.

Conclusion: Current patient information in the Internet does not comprenhensively address all educational needs of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.  While websites commonly present general information about the disease and treatment choices, most fail to address prognosis and complications than can occur throughout the course of the disease. In addition, websites commonly fail to report adequate disclosure statements and sources of information and most are unsuitable for low-literacy populations.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/quality-assessment-of-websites-providing-educational-content-about-rheumatoid-arthritis/