Maymun Çiçeği Virüsü Hakkında Bilgi Sunan Web Sitelerinin Okunabilirliğinin Değerlendirilmesi

ABSTRACTBackground:Aims: The aim of this study is to evaluate the readability, reliability, and quality of the content on websites providing information about the monkeypox virus.Methods: The Google search engine (www.google.com.tr) was used with the keyword ‘monkeypox,’ and 44 English-language websites, which did not require membership and were freely accessible, from the first 15 pages of search results were included in the study. The websites were categorized into four groups: news sites, professional health organizations, government websites, and others. The readability of the texts on the websites was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Gunning Fog Index (GFI), Coleman-Liau Index (CLI), and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook Index (SMOG). The content quality of the texts was evaluated using the JAMA and DISCERN tools.Results: Of the websites examined, 54.5% were news sites, and only 15.9% were affiliated with professional health organizations. It was found that 56.8% of the websites had a FRES readability level of ‘Difficult to read,’ 47.7% had a CLI readability level of ‘Fairly difficult,’ 68.2% had a SMOG readability level of ‘Undergraduate,’ and 57.8% had a GFI readability level of ‘College graduate.’ The average JAMA score of the websites was 2.09, and the average DISCERN score was 40.61.Conclusion: The readability level of the information provided on websites regarding monkeypox was found to be of moderate difficulty, with inadequate quality and weak reliability. Based on these findings, our study underscores the importance of considering the readability, quality, and reliability of websites that provide information about monkeypox, highlighting that these factors should not be overlooked.