Evaluation of online content of proctological disorders in the Portuguese language.

Introduction: health literacy has an increasing relevance as the disseminated access to online contents may impact on community health. This study aimed to evaluate the suitability of the online content of benign proctological disorders.

Methods: the platforms Google© and YouTube™ were searched using the keywords hemorrhoidal disease, anal fistula, anal fissure, anal pruritus and fecal incontinence. Each page was analyzed for: interactivity, credibility, readability and content adequacy. For each video, the content, reactions and comments of the users were analyzed. Three validated scales were applied: Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG); Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM), and quality criteria for consumer health information on treatment choices (DISCERN).

Results: a total of 127 webpages and 113 videos were evaluated. Forty webpages (31.50 %) included images and ten (37.04 %) had informative videos. The SMOG scale had an average value of 9.91 ± 0.94, which estimates the need for ten years of schooling for comprehension and 64 webpages (52.07 %) presented a reading level higher than the recommended B1. The mean SAM score was 39.46 ± 11.2 % and the DISCERN scale averaged 40.33 ± 5.69, corresponding to a reasonable content. Only 20 pages (15.75 %) included interactivity tools and 44 (34.64 %) contained bibliographic references. The videos posted by patients (n = 67, 59.2 %) had the highest number of views and positive comments whereas videos from health professionals (n = 21; 18.75 %) had the highest proportion of requests for additional information.

Discussion: online content regarding benign proctological disorders is globally inappropriate for the health literacy level of the Portuguese population, both at the written and reading levels.