Korean J Asthma Allergy Clin Immunol.  2004 Jun;24(2):224-228.

Bronchial Asthma Education and the Internet: The Present Situation and Future Direction

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Recent advances in the Internet have enabled patient to search for large amounts of medical information. The Internet is easily accessible, but available information is under no guidelines or regulations in Korea.
OBJECTIVE
We evaluated the quality of information related to bronchial asthma on the Internet and the role in patient education with simple search technique. METHOD: The search phrases "bronchial asthma"were entered into four common Internet search engines. As indicated by the search engines, web sites and the 50 most commonly encountered web documents were reviewed. An information score (IS) from Libertiny et al. was modified to assess how well the web page educated the patient about the disease. RESULT: Of 110 web sites and documents, 109 were accessible. 41 (37.6%) web sites and documents were pub lished by private practice groups. The overall mean information score was 3.606, and only 10 (9.2%) sites had useful patient-oriented information (IS>10). Differences in IS between 8 subgroups were not significant (P=0.075). Misleading or unconventional therapeutic recommendations were recognized in 11 (10.1%) and 24 (22%) sites, respectively. CONCLUSION: Patient-oriented bronchial asthma information is difficult to find on the Internet in Korea. The overall quality is poor. About one third presented information that was classified as misleading or unconventional, especially in oriental medicine sites. There is an urgent need to develop proper asthma patient educational programs, guidelines for medical web site evaluation and gateways to high quality Internet-based medical resources.

MeSH Terms

Asthma*
Education*
Humans
Internet*
Korea
Medicine, East Asian Traditional
Patient Education as Topic
Private Practice
Search Engine
Social Control, Formal