Tele-health: assessment of websites on newborn hearing screening in Portuguese Language

ABSTRACT

Purpose:

To verify the aspects of technical quality and the content of websites on neonatal hearing screening in Portuguese.

Methods:

Eighteen audiologists, invited to participate according to the inclusion criteria, selected descriptors of websites for research using the Delphi technique. Later, they were fed into Google Trends to get the possible terms to be used by parents in finding information on the Internet about the subject. They were then fed into Google to search the websites. The following assessment instruments were used: list of topics on newborn hearing screening, Flesch Reading Ease Score Formula, Health-Related Web Site Evaluation Emory Form, and PageRank.

Results:

The most discussed topics in the 19 websites were on the objectives and benefits of neonatal hearing screening, as well as the process of audiological diagnosis. The least discussed were about the false-negative result, development of hearing and language, false-positive results, audiologic, interpretation of results - "Pass"/"Do not pass", retest, and protocol. Difficult reading level was prevalent, with aspects of technical quality considered the best quality-related content, audience, navigation, and structure. The results also showed there is no culture of inserting links on Brazilian national websites, so they had little relevance on Google.

Conclusions:

The sites differed in the aspects addressed because there is a need to revise the reading level of the content and quality of the technical aspects regarding the accuracy and timeliness of information, authorship, and links.

Keywords:
Telemedicine; Internet; Neonatal Screening; Hearing; Family