ArticleBMC oral health2026
How Reliable is eHealth information on dental care in head and neck cancer? A quality evaluation.
Article in BMC oral health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundGiven the increasing reliance on online health information, this study aimed to systematically assess the quality of German-language eHealth information on head and neck cancer (HNC) related dental care.
methodsGerman-language websites were searched via Google.de, Bing.de/Yahoo.de, and DuckDuckGo.com in February 2025. German-language Youtube-videos were searched in March 2025. Websites were assessed across 4 domains: technical/functional aspects (LIDA-instrument), readability (Flesh-reading-ease-score), comprehensiveness (structured checklist), and quality and risk of bias (DISCERN-instrument). Differences between domains were tested using the Friedman test. Group differences among provider types were examined with one-way ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis tests. YouTube-videos were assessed for comprehensiveness, viewers' interaction, and viewing rate. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test compared comprehensiveness between Youtube-videos and websites.
resultsA total of 134 eligible websites and 26 YouTube-videos were included. 63.4% of the websites were operated by private dental practices. All four domains differed significantly from each other (p < 0.001). Websites from private and corporate dental practices or private hospital groups showed significantly lower scores in technical/functional aspects compared with websites from dental societies, regulatory bodies, public institutions, or insurance companies. Overall readability was poor, with the highest scores observed for institutional websites (median 49.0) and the lowest for private practices (median 38.0). Comprehensiveness of patient-oriented information was low, especially among corporate dental practices and private hospital groups (median 5.0). Quality of consumer health information was highest for commercial or non-profit information services (median 29) and lowest for private and corporate dental practices (median 23.0). Only 19.2% of YouTube-videos originated from private dental practices, and exhibited low viewer interaction (median 0.9). No significant difference in comprehensiveness was observed between websites and YouTube-videos (p = 0.924).
conclusionsGerman-language eHealth information on dental care in HNC is generally of low quality. This study highlights the need for standardized, reliable, and patient-oriented online resources to support oral health and quality of life in HNC patients.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.