TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluation of information on the Internet regarding surgical mesh for hernia repair
T2 - analysis of websites found through three popular search engines
AU - Miller, Matthew P.
AU - Blatnik, Jeffrey A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Mr. Miller has no conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose. Dr. Blatnik reports grants from Ethicon, personal fees from Medtronic, personal fees from BD (Formerly Bard Davol), and personal fees from Intuitive Surgical, outside the submitted work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag France SAS part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - Purpose: Hernia repair remains one of the most common surgical procedures. Surgical mesh usage has been highlighted in the media due to recent lawsuits and recalls. Patients can read potentially biased information on the Internet and this can influence a patient’s healthcare decisions. The purpose of this study is to evaluate search engine listings and respective website content of surgical mesh for hernia repair. Methods: Websites evaluated were derived from four keyword searches targeting surgical mesh with Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Websites from the first two pages of each search were evaluated for content comprehensiveness. Results: The largest category of websites from search engine results was legal advertisements, accounting for 20% of all results. These websites also held the first position on every results page. Legal advertisements and blog/forum websites were the most skewed toward surgical mesh risks and complications vs. benefits. There was a reduction in advertisements in 2020 vs. 2018. The most comprehensive non-advertisement websites were found more frequently. Overall, only 44% of websites presented references and 50% cited supporting data. Finally, 46% of ‘recommended search terms’ displayed on the search engine results page had a risk, complication, or legal bias. Conclusions: These results emphasize the challenges of using an Internet search engine to find comprehensive and appropriate information regarding surgical mesh. This manuscript underscores the importance for physicians to direct patients toward specific websites to mitigate their exposure to websites that are biased and not appropriate for patients searching for an accurate and comprehensive overview of surgical mesh.
AB - Purpose: Hernia repair remains one of the most common surgical procedures. Surgical mesh usage has been highlighted in the media due to recent lawsuits and recalls. Patients can read potentially biased information on the Internet and this can influence a patient’s healthcare decisions. The purpose of this study is to evaluate search engine listings and respective website content of surgical mesh for hernia repair. Methods: Websites evaluated were derived from four keyword searches targeting surgical mesh with Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Websites from the first two pages of each search were evaluated for content comprehensiveness. Results: The largest category of websites from search engine results was legal advertisements, accounting for 20% of all results. These websites also held the first position on every results page. Legal advertisements and blog/forum websites were the most skewed toward surgical mesh risks and complications vs. benefits. There was a reduction in advertisements in 2020 vs. 2018. The most comprehensive non-advertisement websites were found more frequently. Overall, only 44% of websites presented references and 50% cited supporting data. Finally, 46% of ‘recommended search terms’ displayed on the search engine results page had a risk, complication, or legal bias. Conclusions: These results emphasize the challenges of using an Internet search engine to find comprehensive and appropriate information regarding surgical mesh. This manuscript underscores the importance for physicians to direct patients toward specific websites to mitigate their exposure to websites that are biased and not appropriate for patients searching for an accurate and comprehensive overview of surgical mesh.
KW - Internet research
KW - Patient education
KW - Search engine results page
KW - Surgical mesh
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100581157&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10029-021-02375-y
DO - 10.1007/s10029-021-02375-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 33550489
AN - SCOPUS:85100581157
SN - 1265-4906
VL - 26
SP - 581
EP - 587
JO - Hernia
JF - Hernia
IS - 2
ER -