Patients' Perspectives of Accessibility and Digital Delivery of Factual Content Provided by Official Medical and Surgical Specialty Society Websites: A Qualitative Assessment

Background: Health care websites provide a valuable resource of health information to online consumers, especially patients. Official surgical and medical society websites should be a reliable first point of contact. Objective: The primary aim of this study was to quantitatively assess medical and surgical society websites for content and highlight the essential features required for a high-quality, user-friendly society website. Methods: Twenty specialty association websites from each of the regions, Australia, UK, Canada, Europe, and the USA were selected for a total of 100 websites. Medical and surgical specialities were consistent across each region. Each website was systematically and critically analysed for content and usability. Results: The average points scored per website was 3.2 out of 10. Of the total (N=100) websites, 12 scored at least 7 out of 10 points and 2 scored 9 out of 10. As well, 35% (35.0/100) of the websites had an information tab for patients on their respective homepages while 38% (38.0/100) had download access to patient information. A minority of the websites included different forms of multimedia such as pictures and diagrams (24.0/100, 24%) and videos (18.0/100, 18%). Conclusions: We found that most society websites did not meet an adequate standard for delivery of information. Half of the websites were not patient accessible, with the primary focus being for health professionals. As well, most required logins for information access. Specialty health care societies should create patient-friendly websites that would be beneficial to all online consumers.