Review of the quality of information on bipolar disorder on the Internet

Objectives: The aim of the present study was to assess the quality of commonly found websites on bipolar disorder. A specifically designed quality tool, the Bipolar Website Quality Checklist (BWQC), was developed for this purpose.Methods: The BWQC was developed from quality criteria identified by a literature review of Medline (1966 + ), Medline in-process and non-indexed citations, PsychINFO, CINAHL, EMBASE, Pub Med, Science citation index, and PsychArticles, using keywords: ‘quality, reliability, accuracy, readability, evaluation, assessment, information, internet, web, www’. To identify relevant websites, seven common search engines were accessed and searched using a string of key words: ‘bipolar disorder + mania+ manic depression+ hypomania’. The top active 15 sites identified were rated by three independent raters, using the BWQC and DISCERN instruments.Results: There was a wide variability in the quality of the websites reviewed. The Black Dog Institute website was ranked first by the BWQC and DISCE...