Quality evaluation of the available Internet information regarding pain during orthodontic treatment |
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| Authors: | Christos Livas Konstantina Delli Yijin Ren |
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| Institution: | aAssociate Director, Department of Orthodontics, 251 Hellenic Air Force VA General Hospital, Athens, Greece, and research fellow, Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland ; bResearch fellow, Department of Oral Surgery and Stomatology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland ; cProfessor and Chair, Department of Orthodontics, University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen, The Netherlands |
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| Abstract: | Objective:To investigate the quality of the data disseminated via the Internet regarding pain experienced by orthodontic patients.Materials and Methods:A systematic online search was performed for ‘orthodontic pain’ and ‘braces pain’ separately using five search engines. The first 25 results from each search term–engine combination were pooled for analysis. After excluding advertising sites, discussion groups, video feeds, and links to scientific articles, 25 Web pages were evaluated in terms of accuracy, readability, accessibility, usability, and reliability using recommended research methodology; reference textbook material, the Flesch Reading Ease Score; and the LIDA instrument. Author and information details were also recorded.Results:Overall, the results indicated a variable quality of the available informational material. Although the readability of the Web sites was generally acceptable, the individual LIDA categories were rated of medium or low quality, with average scores ranging from 16.9% to 86.2%. The orthodontic relevance of the Web sites was not accompanied by the highest assessment results, and vice versa.Conclusions:The quality of the orthodontic pain information cited by Web sources appears to be highly variable. Further structural development of health information technology along with public referral to reliable sources by specialists are recommended. |
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| Keywords: | Orthodontics Pain Internet Information |
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