Background: Patients considering rhinoplasty often use internet health information resources before consultation with a surgeon. These can be beneficial and promote patient autonomy if high quality or be detrimental if misleading impressions about results and complications are reported as fact. This study aimed to objectively assess the quality of health information regarding rhinoplasty on the internet.
Methods: The 3 most popular search engines in the United Kingdom (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) were searched using 4 different terms relating to rhinoplasty. The first 30 links from each search were collated; 360 links in total were screened. Sixty-six suitable websites were examined using the LIDA and DISCERN instruments and had their Flesch Reading Ease Scores (FRES) calculated.
Results: The websites displayed low LIDA reliability scores (22%), moderate usability (61%) and high accessibility scores (87%). There was no correlation between a website's search result rank and its LIDA score (Spearman ρ = 0.033, P = 0.799). The DISCERN scores were generally low (mean 54%) and displayed no correlation with website rank (Spearman ρ = 0.070, P = 0.564). FRES values were less readable than that recommended for health information (mean FRES = 57.8; recommended ≥70) and significantly correlated with website rank (Spearman ρ = -0.3164; P = 0.009).
Conclusions: Rhinoplasty internet health information is generally of low quality, unreliable and less readable than recommended. Improvements are needed to increase the quality of internet rhinoplasty resources for patients.