Inflammatory Sources: Exploring Google Searches on Gastrtitis

Introduction/Objectives: Gastritis is a general form of upper abdominal pain. With its high frequency and the copious non-surgical and surgical treatment options, we believe patients are likely searching the internet for questions applicable to gastritis. No investigation has ever been completed into gastritis Google searches, therefore we sought to classify these questions as well as assess their levels of quality and transparency using Google’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

Methods: We searched Google using questions on gastritis and extracted the sources of a minimum of 200 questions for evaluation. Information transparency was assessed using the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Benchmark, classification was defined using the Rothwell Classification of Questions, and information quality was assessed using Brief DISCERN.

Results: Our Google search returned 228 unique FAQs after removing duplicates and unrelated FAQs. The majority were classified as fact-based questions (103/228, 45.2%), followed by value (76/228, 33.3%) and policy questions (49/228, 21.5%). Most FAQs pertained to surgical treatment (127/228, 55.7%), followed by non-surgical treatment (66/228, 28.9%) and then disease process (35/228, 15.4%). The one-way analysis of variance revealed a significant difference in median quality scores among the 5 source types (H(4) = 18.97, P <.001) with medical practices (12/30) scoring the lowest compared to government (16/30), academic (16/30), and media outlet (22/30) sources which were found to have the highest.

Conclusions: To increase the transparency and quality of online information regarding gastritis treatment, sources should refer to accepted standards such as JAMA Benchmark and Brief DISCERN when publishing online information.