Information about benzodiazepines: what does the internet offer us?

Abstract This study analysed the quality of information published on the internet regarding 4 benzodiazepines that are widely used in Brazil: alprazolam, bromazepam, clonazepam and diazepam. This choice is justified by the fact that these drugs are widely used and can generate chemical dependency, and the internet is an important source of information about them. We analysed 20 sites for each drug. More than half (56.3%) of the sites were classified as deficient or very deficient. The most frequent problems with the sites were the absence of a description of the person responsible for the site (60%), incomplete information (62.5%), the absence of a contact for additional information (45%) and the absence of the last date the site was updated (82%). These results reinforce concerns regarding the quality of the health information published on the internet, which has already been noted in the literature, and the need to adopt minimum quality criteria for this information.摘要 本研究针对巴西临床广泛使用的4种苯二氮䓬类（benzodiazepines）药物——阿普唑仑（alprazolam）、溴西泮（bromazepam）、氯硝西泮（clonazepam）与地西泮（diazepam），分析了互联网上公开的相关信息质量。选取该四类药物作为研究对象的合理性在于：此类药物临床应用广泛且可引发药物依赖性，同时互联网是此类药物相关信息的重要来源。本研究针对每种药物各选取20个相关网站开展分析，超半数（56.3%）的网站被评定为不合格或极不合格。此类网站最常见的问题包括：未明确标注网站负责人信息（60%）、信息内容不完整（62.5%）、未提供额外信息的联系方式（45%）以及未标注网站最后更新日期（82%）。本研究结果进一步印证了已有文献提及的互联网健康信息质量问题，同时凸显了为该类信息制定最低质量标准的必要性。