Quality of online information on type 2 diabetes mellitus in Arabic language websites

The Internet has become a major source of health information. However, the accuracy and quality of this information might be questionable. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of online information on type-2 diabetes on Arabic websites. In this cross-sectional study, the term “type-2 diabetes” in the Arabic language was fed to popular search engines. The first 25 hits from each engine were considered. A list of 50 websites was evalu-ated in terms of formal quality, usability and accuracy of the information provided by the website. The average percentage of quality standards (QS) achievement of the evaluated websites was 31.6% (min=7 (15.9%) and max=28 (63.6%)). The author was identified in 40% of the websites; however the percentage of showing his/her affiliation, expertise and credentials were 18, 10 and 10% respectively. Only 12% of the websites provided infor-mation written by healthcare providers. Only half of the websites described the disease, and only 22% discussed the treatment options. This study demonstrates a lack of credibility and low quality for the information on type-2 diabetes mellitus provided by the majority of web-sites in the Arabic language.