ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The internet has a great amount of medical information for patients, but because no standards exist regarding the publication of medical literature on the internet, the quality of the internet information is quite variable. The purpose of our study was to assess the content and ethics of information on epilepsy, which is available on the Korean internet. METHODS: The search word "epilepsy" or "seizure" was entered into the five most commonly utilized Korean internet search engines. The web sites were divided into the higher or lower rank site on the basis of popularity ranking, and then evaluated by using both ethic and content value scales. The comparison between two groups was analyzed. RESULTS: Twenty eight epilepsy web sites were identified and divided into two equal groups. The average scores of ethic and content value scales were below half of the total score in the higher rank group as well as the lower. The score of higher rank group was not different statistically to that of lower rank group in both value scales. In addition, the score in the epilepsy specialists group was not higher than that in the non-specialists as well. DISCUSSION: The internet is easily accessible source of medical information including epilepsy. Moreover, because lots of epileptic patients are using the web for obtaining the information, the web information should be standardized. The results of our study show that clinicians should not recommend the epilepsy web site as a source of information for epileptic patients unless the epilepsy websites have been evaluated and assessed.