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Trends in internet search activity, media coverage, and patient-centered health information after the FDA safety communications on surgical mesh for pelvic organ prolapse

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Abstract

Introduction

In July 2011, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a safety communication regarding serious complications associated with surgical mesh for pelvic organ prolapse, prompting increased media and public attention. This study sought to analyze internet search activity and news article volume after this FDA warning and to evaluate the quality of websites providing patient-centered information.

Methods

Google Trends™ was utilized to evaluate search engine trends for the term “pelvic organ prolapse” and associated terms between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2014. Google News™ was utilized to quantify the number of news articles annually under the term “pelvic organ prolapse.” The search results for the term “pelvic organ prolapse” were assessed for quality using the Health On the Net Foundation (HON) certification.

Results

There was a significant increase in search activity from 37.42 in 2010 to 57.75 in 2011, at the time of the FDA communication (p = 0.021). No other annual interval had a statistically significant increase in search activity. The single highest monthly search activity, given the value of 100, was August 2011, immediately following the July 2011 notification, with the next highest value being 98 in July 2011. Linear regression analysis of news articles per year since the FDA communication revealed r2 = 0.88, with a coefficient of 186. Quality assessment demonstrated that 42 % of websites were HON-certified, with .gov sites providing the highest quality information.

Conclusions

Although the 2011 FDA safety communication on surgical mesh was associated with increased public and media attention, the quality of relevant health information on the internet remains of poor quality. Future quality assurance measures may be critical in enabling patients to play active roles in their own healthcare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian Hospital, 425 E 61st Street, 12th floor, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Benjamin V. Stone, James C. Forde, Valerie B. Levit, Richard K. Lee, Alexis E. Te & Bilal Chughtai

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  1. Benjamin V. Stone
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  2. James C. Forde
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  3. Valerie B. Levit
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  4. Richard K. Lee
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  5. Alexis E. Te
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  6. Bilal Chughtai
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bilal Chughtai.

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Institutional review board approval

This study was exempt from institutional review board approval for the following reason: research involving the collection or study of existing data, documents, records, pathological specimens, or diagnostic specimens, if these sources are publicly available or if the information is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that subjects cannot be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects.

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Stone, B.V., Forde, J.C., Levit, V.B. et al. Trends in internet search activity, media coverage, and patient-centered health information after the FDA safety communications on surgical mesh for pelvic organ prolapse. Int Urogynecol J 27, 1761–1766 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-016-3040-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-016-3040-6

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