Internet advice may not be reliable for your kid’s health--study

Researchers at Nottingham University Hospitals’ NHS Trust established that people surfing the internet for health-related advice for their children may not be doing justice to their kids’ health, as many sites do not offer correct suggestions.

“Healthcare professionals should continue to strive to be the main source of information for patients but we should be aware that most will continue to use the internet to gather information,” stated the study authors, Paul Scullard, Clare Peacock and Patrick Davies from the NHS Trust.

Details of the study
For the study, the researchers used Google to seek facts about five conditions--HIV breastfeeding, mastitis breastfeeding (breastfeeding while the breast tissue is inflamed), baby sleeping position along with green vomit and MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and autism.

On observing the sites for child healthcare information, the researchers found that the type of guidance offered differed notably.

They also found that half of the search results were unable to answer the question typed.

The study also revealed that mere 200 out of 500 studied sites were able to offer accurate information and also that government-run websites were the only absolutely dependable source.

In other words, 39 percent of the 500 results gave accurate information while 11 percent gave the wrong answer; the most incorrect replies being given to search results regarding MMR and autism along with HIV and breastfeeding.

The study also revealed that news websites gave correct information 55 percent of the times.

Simultaneously, the ‘sponsored links’ showed the worst response in answering queries, the researchers found.

Other findings
Besides this, a study was conducted earlier on similar guidelines to search for advice for children suffering from fever.

This study found that only three of 22 websites evaluated gave reliable information that corresponded to the ‘best practice’ guidelines.

“We suggest that in addition to verbal and written information, patients and parents should be signposted to NHS, governmental or other pre-approved websites,” stated the study researchers.

Spokesperson, Department of Health said, “NHS Choices is now the most popular health website in the UK, receiving nearly nine million hits a month.”

“It offers a range of health information on over 800 treatments and conditions, waiting times and survival rates for elective procedures,” added the researchers.

The study appears in Archives of Disease in Childhood.