Exploring the digital landscape: A scoping review of Achilles tendinopathy education on public websites and in randomised controlled trials.
Peter Malliaras, Adrian Mallows, Sean McAullife and 15 others
PMID 41358871WHAT IT FOUND
Across 385 Achilles tendinopathy websites and five trial leaflets, education was often low quality and incomplete.
They commonly missed guideline advice on pain, prognosis, risks and shared choices, so check before directing patients.
Key findings
01Of 385 public websites and 119 trials, only five trials provided patient-facing education materials for appraisal.
02Across 385 websites, average quality was 1.8 out of 5 on a scale where 5 means minimal shortcomings, and only 6 websites scored 5 for 75% or more items.
03Website education met only 13% of terminology items, 7% of diagnosis items and 13% of treatment items on average across all websites.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
This is a scoping review of education content, not a test of whether education improves patient outcomes. The website search used 20 terms and only the first three pages of Google results, so it may miss other sites. It included only English, Chinese and Spanish websites, so findings may not apply to other languages. Videos, podcasts, infographics and artificial intelligence tools were not searched. The review did not appraise the risk of bias of the included trials. Only five of 119 trials provided patient-facing education materials for appraisal. The website search was completed in August 2023, so newer sites were not appraised. Reviewer agreement was not perfect, and some appraisal items relied on judgement.
Declared interests
The authors received no financial support and declared no conflicts of interest. Search terms were partly drawn from a Google paid advertising campaign run by one author for a separate study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a website or trial leaflet is accurate because it exists. The review found low quality and poor guideline alignment, and it did not test patient outcomes.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →