Quality and readability of online information on dental treatment for snoring and obstructive sleep apnea

Purpose: To evaluate quality and readability of online information on dental treatment for snoring and obstructive sleep apnea. Methods: An Internet search was done using three engines (Bing, Google, and Yahoo) with the combination of terms, "snoring sleep apnea dental treatment". The first 100 sites from the search of each engine were screened. Subject sites were evaluated with Health on the Net(HON) criteria, Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks, DISCERN, Ensuring Quality Information for Patients(EQIP), Flesch-Kincaid Grade level and Flesch Reading Ease(FRE) score. Results: One hundred and thirty websites were evaluated. The HON, DISCERN, EQIP, and FRE score were each 39.4%, 47.3%, 49.7%, and 51.6% of the maximum possible score, respectively. According to JAMA benchmarks fewer than 50% of the sites displayed attribution and currency. There was only one site displaying the HON seal. HON score, DISCERN score and EQIP score showed significant inter-correlation. Conclusion: Based on this study, the current quality and readability of searchable websites on dental treatment for snoring and sleep apnea are low and poorly maintained on average. Clinicians should be able to evaluate and give accurate online information on this issue to patients.