Analysis of Online Patient Education Materials on Rhinoplasty

Objective: Are education materials available online appropriate for patients seeking information before rhinoplasty? Study Design: Google.com and YouTube.com were searched for patient education information on rhinoplasty procedures. Of the first 100 results, 75 articles and 75 videos met the inclusion criteria. Each article's readability was scored using six previously validated readability scores to determine patient's ability to comprehend the text, while each video was scored using the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria and the Global Quality Score (GQS) to measure source reliability and educational value, respectively. Results: Analysis of the readability of the 75 articles yielded an average grade reading level of 10.31 (range 5-20; 95% confidence interval, 9.83-10.79), while video analysis found videos authored by physicians were significantly more reliable (P-JAMA < 0.001) and had a significantly higher educational value (P-GQS < 0.001). Patient education videos were found to be more reliable than patient experience videos (P-JAMA = 0.01). Conclusions: The average reading level for text information on rhinoplasty is higher than the recommended 5th-grade reading level and educational videos authored by physicians are more reliable and contain higher educational value yet lack important information.