Surfing for shin guards: the accuracy of online information

The internet is widely used by the public to look for health-related information. The quality of information about shin guard characteristics and protective benefits is lacking. The objectives of this study are the folowing: (1) to summarise currently available knowledge on shin guards. (2) To assess the quality of websites presenting information pertinent to shin guards by using previously validated scoring systems. (3) To develop a novel scoring system to assess the accuracy of the content available online on shin guards. First, scientific knowledge about shin guards was developed by searching the scientific databases. Second, we identified eligible websites containing information about shin guard by searching the top 3 English search engines (Google, Yahoo! and Bing). Finally, to evaluate the websites, we searched peer-reviewed articles to identify appropriate scoring systems to assess the quality of health information on the internet. 25 Web sites were included; the mean overall score was 17.4 out of 35 (49.7%). The average quality score was 5.3 out of 15 (35.3%) and the average reliability score was 12.2 out of 20 (61%). Overall, most of the websites retrieved are of poor quality, with none of the websites’ total score reaching the threshold to be included in the “Excellent Category” and only one website was qualified to be added to the “very good category”. Our study suggests that there is paucity of websites available providing reliable and accurate information about shin guards.