Objective:

To evaluate website content designed to provide epilepsy surgery information to patients.

Background:

Surgery is an important treatment for patients with medically refractory epilepsy. An increasing number of patients are turning to the Internet to obtain health information, but a previous study in the United Kingdom demonstrated poor readability and gaps in content from epilepsy surgery online resources. In this study, we used a US-based search strategy to analyze website content to determine the frequency of inclusion for key concepts relevant to the understanding of epilepsy surgery evaluation, risks, complications and options.

Design/Methods:

Private browser Google search was used to find the top 100 search results for the terms “epilepsy+surgery”. Scientific papers, insurance pages, pay-wall limited and non-text content were excluded. Text content was analyzed for inclusion of important concepts (pre-surgical evaluation, complications, risks of continuing to live with seizures, types of surgery, complimentary diagrams/audiovisual material). Comparison of content inclusion was performed as a function of organization types (level 4 epilepsy centers, community health websites) and location (US-based or non-US-based) using the chi-square test.

Results:

Preliminary analysis of 100 Google search results yields 76 websites and 24 exclusions. The inclusion rate of surgical complication content is positively correlated with non-level 4 epilepsy centers (76.9% vs 23.8%, p<0.001), community health websites (100% vs 25.0%, p<0.001), and non-US-based organizations (100% vs 29.2%, p=0.02). Higher rates of content addressing responsive neurostimulation surgery are correlated with level 4 epilepsy center designation (58.7% vs 38.5%, p=0.04).

Conclusions:

The majority of online health content is relatively incomplete with regards to multiple key concepts important for understanding a person’s surgical candidacy and the process of epilepsy surgery. Our findings suggest academic organizations, including level 4 epilepsy centers, need to broaden online health education resources for epilepsy surgery. More comprehensive publicly accessible information may lead to better shared decision-making.