ABSTRACT
Background: Patients are increasingly using the internet for searching health-related information. However, the quality and readability of the information available on the internet need to be assessed. To date, no study has assessed the quality and readability of web-based Arabic health information on early childhood caries. Objectives: To evaluate the quality and readability of patient-oriented online Arabic health information regarding early childhood caries. Materials and Methods: For this infodemiological study, the Google and Yahoo search engines were searched using specific Arabic terms for early childhood caries, and the top 100 searches from both search engines were considered. Eligible websites were categorized in terms of affiliation as commercial, health portal, dental practice, professional, and journalism. The quality of the websites was assessed using the QUality Evaluation Scoring Tool (QUEST), and readability using the Gunning Fog index (GFI). Results: A total of 140 websites were included after applying the exclusion criteria, of which 50.7% websites were of journalism. The majority of the websites (70%) had an overall low-quality level, with a QUEST score <10. The quality of websites retrieved from Google searches was of significantly higher quality than those from Yahoo (P < 0.0001). More than half (51.4%) of the websites had good readability, with a GFI score ≤8. Journalism websites had a significantly higher proportion of websites with poor readability level (62%) compared with other affiliations (P = 0.0072). Conclusion: The web-based Arabic information regarding early childhood caries is currently of low quality and moderate readability level, thereby indicating a need for improving such patient-facing content.
