2005 Surfing for Scoliosis Medscape

Description: From Spine. 2005;30(23):2695-2700
Surfing for Scoliosis: The Quality of Information Available on the Internet
Posted 12/30/2005 Sameer Mathur, MD; Nael Shanti, MD; Mario Brkaric, MD; Vivek Sood, MD; Justin Kubeck, MD; Carl Paulino, MD; Andrew A. Merola, MD
Conclusion: The information about scoliosis on the Internet is of limited quality and poor information value. Although the majority of the Web sites were academic, the content quality and accuracy scores were still poor. The lowest scoring Web sites were the nonphysician professionals and the unidentified sites, which were often message boards. Overall, the highest scoring Web site related to both quality and accuracy of information was www.srs.org. This Web site was designed by the Scoliosis Research Society. The public and the medical communities need to be aware of these existing limitations of the Internet. Based on our review, the physician must assume primary responsibility of educating and counseling their patients.