Does the packaging of health information affect the assessment of its reliability? A randomized controlled trial protocol

Abstract

Wikipedia is frequently used as a source of health information. However, the quality of its content varies widely across articles. The DISCERN tool is a brief questionnaire developed in 1996 by the Division of Public Health and Primary Health Care of the Institute of Health Sciences of the University of Oxford. They claim it provides users with a valid and reliable way of assessing the quality of written information. However, the DISCERN instrument’s reliability in measuring the quality of online health information, particularly whether or not its scores are affected by reader biases about specific publication sources, has not yet been explored. This study is a double-blind randomized assessment of a Wikipedia article versus a BMJ literature review using a modified version of the DISCERN tool. Participants will include physicians and medical residents from four university campuses in Ontario and British Columbia and will be randomized into one of four study arms. Inferential statistics tests (paired t-test, multi-level ordinal regression, and one-way ANOVA) will be conducted with the data collected from the study. The primary outcome of this study will be to determine whether a statistically significant difference in DISCERN scores exists, which could suggest whether or not how health information is packaged influences how it is assessed for quality.

Keywords

• health information
• wikipedia
• discern
• internet
• patient education