Online Health Information for COVID 19 Vaccine Induced Myocarditis: Between the Myth and Truth

ABSTRACT

Objective: COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis is becoming an important topic. As the internet is the leading source of information, it is crucial to evaluate the quality and readability of health information available to the general public as it has an impact on increasing awareness and encourage vaccinations. Method(s) The top 30 websites of 2 different search engines (Google, Bing) were collected using the term "Covid vaccine induced myocarditis" on a newly installed Mozilla Firefox browser. Physicianoriented websites, non-relevant content (not connected to the search keyword), and duplicates were all excluded. The quality of the websites were evaluated using the DISCERN tool by two physician reviewers who are knowledgeable and were blinded to each other's findings. After that, the data was evaluated to come up with an aggregated score for each website. Readability was assessed using the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Ease (FKRE) and the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) tool. Result(s) A total of 19 websites were assessed after exclusion criteria. The average overall quality for DISCERN was 3.4 out of 5 with a median of 3.46 while the average total DISCERN score was 48.2 out of 80 the highest total quality among them being 63 out of 80. The average FKRE was 48.5 out of 100, while the average FKGL was 8.7 out of 18 with the lowest grade being 6.2. Conclusion(s) Overall, the quality of the information was rated as moderate or "fair" with an average of 3.4 out of 5. Most of the websites were accurate in the information provided. However, those websites that were high quality did require a higher level of education to be able to comprehend. The average reading grade level was 8.7 grade, which is higher than the average American reads (8th grade). The highest quality website based on DISCERN was Health U.S news. All websites encouraged vaccinations and explained the rarity of getting myocarditis from COVID 19 vaccine.