David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
The Trouble with Wikipedia as a Source for Medical Information
Laika's MedLibLog
September 14, 2009
Do you ever use Wikipedia? I do and so do many other people. It is for free, easy to use, and covers many subjects.
But do you ever use Wikipedia to look up scientific or medical information? Probably everyone does so once in a while. Dave Munger (Researchblogging) concluded a discussion on Twitter as follows:
But the key question is whether you can rely on Wikipedia as the sole source for medical, scientific or even popular information.
Well, you simply can?t...
...
Basically, the strength of Wikipedia is it weakness: anyone can write anything on any subject, and anyone can edit it, anonymously.
Negative aspects include its coverage (choice of subjects but also the depth of coverage), the ?overlinking?, the sometimes frustating interactions between authors and editors, regularly leading to (often polite) ?revision wars?, but above all the lack of ?expert? authors or peer review. This may result in incomplete, wrong or distorted information.
Positive aspects are its accessibility, currency, availability in many languages, and the collective ?authorship? (which is an admirable concept).
...
Wikipedia may even be less suitable for drug information questions, questions that one-third of all Internet health-seekers search for. A study in Annals of Pharmacotherapy comparing the scope, completeness, and accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia to a free, online, traditionally edited database (Medscape Drug Reference [MDR]) showed that Wikipedia answered significantly fewer drug information questions (40.0%) compared with MDR (82.5%; p < 0.001) and that Wikipedia answers were less complete. Although no factual errors were found, errors of omission were higher in Wikipedia (n = 48) than in MDR (n = 14). The authors did notice a marked improvement in Wikipedia over time. The authors conclude:
German researches found, not surprisingly, that Wikipedia (as well as two and two major German statutory health insurances):
All above studies point at the incompleteness of Wikipedia. Even more serious is the fact that some of the Wikipedia addings are wrong or misleading.
...read the full article
Laika's MedLibLog
September 14, 2009
Do you ever use Wikipedia? I do and so do many other people. It is for free, easy to use, and covers many subjects.
But do you ever use Wikipedia to look up scientific or medical information? Probably everyone does so once in a while. Dave Munger (Researchblogging) concluded a discussion on Twitter as follows:
?Wikipedia?s information quality is better than any encyclopedia, online or off. And, yes, it?s also easy to use?.
Wikipedia is an admirable initiative. It is a large online collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia written by contributors around the world.But the key question is whether you can rely on Wikipedia as the sole source for medical, scientific or even popular information.
Well, you simply can?t...
...
Basically, the strength of Wikipedia is it weakness: anyone can write anything on any subject, and anyone can edit it, anonymously.
Negative aspects include its coverage (choice of subjects but also the depth of coverage), the ?overlinking?, the sometimes frustating interactions between authors and editors, regularly leading to (often polite) ?revision wars?, but above all the lack of ?expert? authors or peer review. This may result in incomplete, wrong or distorted information.
Positive aspects are its accessibility, currency, availability in many languages, and the collective ?authorship? (which is an admirable concept).
...
Wikipedia may even be less suitable for drug information questions, questions that one-third of all Internet health-seekers search for. A study in Annals of Pharmacotherapy comparing the scope, completeness, and accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia to a free, online, traditionally edited database (Medscape Drug Reference [MDR]) showed that Wikipedia answered significantly fewer drug information questions (40.0%) compared with MDR (82.5%; p < 0.001) and that Wikipedia answers were less complete. Although no factual errors were found, errors of omission were higher in Wikipedia (n = 48) than in MDR (n = 14). The authors did notice a marked improvement in Wikipedia over time. The authors conclude:
This study suggests that Wikipedia may be a useful point of engagement for consumers looking for drug information, but that it should be supplementary to, rather than the sole source of, drug information. This is due, in part, to our findings that Wikipedia has a more narrow scope, is less complete, and has more errors of omission versus the comparator database. Consumers relying on incomplete entries for drug information risk being ill-informed with respect to important safety features such as adverse drug events, contraindications, drug interactions, and use in pregnancy.
These errors of omission may prove to be a substantial and largely hidden danger associated with exclusive use of user-edited drug information sources.
Alternatively, user-edited sites may serve as an effective means of disseminating drug information and are promising as a means of more actively involving consumers in their own care. However, health professionals should not use user-edited sites as authoritative sources in their clinical practice, nor should they recommend them to patients without knowing the limitations and providing sufficient additional information and counsel?
Not Evidence BasedThese errors of omission may prove to be a substantial and largely hidden danger associated with exclusive use of user-edited drug information sources.
Alternatively, user-edited sites may serve as an effective means of disseminating drug information and are promising as a means of more actively involving consumers in their own care. However, health professionals should not use user-edited sites as authoritative sources in their clinical practice, nor should they recommend them to patients without knowing the limitations and providing sufficient additional information and counsel?
German researches found, not surprisingly, that Wikipedia (as well as two and two major German statutory health insurances):
??failed to meet relevant criteria, and key information such as the presentation of probabilities of success on patient-relevant outcomes, probabilities of unwanted effects, and unbiased risk communication was missing. On average items related to the objectives of interventions, the natural course of disease and treatment options were only rated as ?partially fulfilled?. (..) In addition, the Wikipedia information tended to achieve lower comprehensibility. In conclusion(..) Wikipedia (..) does not meet important criteria of evidence-based patient and consumer information though??
Wrong, misleading, inaccurateAll above studies point at the incompleteness of Wikipedia. Even more serious is the fact that some of the Wikipedia addings are wrong or misleading.
...read the full article
