Quality and readability of English-language internet information for adults with hearing impairment and their significant others

Abstract

Objective: This study evaluated the quality and readability of English-language internet information for adults with hearing impairment and their significant others. Design: Two keyword pairs (hearing loss and hearing aids) were entered into five country-specific versions of the most commonly used internet search engine in May 2011. Sample: For each of the 10 searches, the first 10 relevant websites were included. After removing duplicates, a total of 66 websites were assessed. Their origin (commercial, non-profit organization, or government), date of last update, quality (Health On the Net (HON) certification and DISCERN scores), and readability (Flesch Reading Ease Score, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula, and Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook) were assessed. Results: Most websites were of commercial origin and had been updated within the last 18 months. Their quality and readability was highly variable. Only 14% of the websites had HON certification. Websites that were of non-profit organization origin had significantly higher DISCERN scores. Readability measures show that on average, only people with at least 11–12 years of education could read and understand the internet information presented. Conclusions: Based on these results, this article provides a list of recommendations for website developers and clinicians wishing to incorporate internet information into their practice.

Key Words::

• Hearing impairment
• hearing aids
• internet health information
• health information quality
• health information readability

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the panel of 12 hearing experts who provided valuable input for the searches. This study was funded by a programme grant from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (2009–0055). Preliminary findings were presented at the International Conference on Cognitive Hearing Science for Communication, 19–22 June, 2011, Linköping, Sweden.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article. Some of the nine highest ranked websites (Table 5) are owned by William Demant Holding, which is an employer of two of the four authors. The criteria for websites to appear in Table 5 (top third for quality DISCERN scale and top third for all readability measures) were decided a priori.