Background: Studies of Internet usage show that a large proportion of Americans turn to the Internet as a source of health information, with many reporting that the information they found influenced a decision about treatment. Less is known about how patients specifically search for and utilize transplant-related information.

Methods: Patients initiating evaluation for transplant candidacy were interviewed using a verbal survey composed of 17 closed- and open-ended, and Likert-scale questions. The first 25 websites listed on Google using “kidney transplantation” as the search query were evaluated.

Results: 51 patients participated in the survey. 85% of patients were over 44 years of age. 67% were male and 82% had completed at least a high-school education. 76% of respondents reported accessing the Internet at least once a day. 45% of patients (or closely associated family members) reported searching for kidney transplant-related information before their appointment. Of these, 87% utilized the Internet for their search. Almost all of the patients who searched online for information felt that they were more knowledgeable about kidney transplantation after their Internet search (94%). Most agreed either strongly or somewhat (61%, 38%) that their Internet search was helpful. Only a third of patients reported concern about the accuracy of the information they found online. Of the top 25 websites resulting from the search query “kidney transplantation," 21 were evaluated and four were excluded. Only 14% of these were current within the last year, 29% of them had a listed clinician author, and 29% had listed references. The mean Flesch-Kincaid grade level for the content found on these sites was 12.2 (7.92-15.06) indicating a reading level above the high-school level. The least frequently covered topics were prognosis after transplant (48%) and risks/complications of kidney transplant (62%).

Conclusions: More than half of patients did not search for information about kidney transplantation prior to their initial evaluation. Encouraging patients to proactively search for information prior to initiating their evaluation may foster more productive and informed engagement in the evaluation process. For some patients, the Internet is an easily accessible source of information. However, the information found on websites was of variable quality and written at an excessively high reading level, suggesting that efforts should be geared towards increasing accessibility and quality of online patient education materials.

CITATION INFORMATION: Fu W., Chai N., Yoo P. The Internet as a Source of Transplant-Related Information for New Kidney Transplant Candidates Am J Transplant. 2017;17 (suppl 3).

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