The New Trend of Pre-pectoral Breast Reconstruction: An Objective Evaluation of the Quality of Online Information for Patients Undergoing Breast Reconstruction

The Web has increasingly become the major source of information about health care, and patients who need to undergo breast reconstruction often use the internet to acquire an initial knowledge on the subject. We would like to present our study that investigates the quality of published information on pre-pectoral breast reconstruction. We searched the term Pre-pectoral breast reconstruction on Google((R)) and Yahoo((R)). Forty-two web sites were selected and underwent qualitative and quantitative assessment using the expanded EQIP tool. The analysis of document contents showed a critical lack of information about qualitative risks and side-effects descriptions, treatment of potential complications, alert signs for the patient and precautions that the patient may take. Health professionals should inform patients about the potential difficulties of identifying reliable informational web sites about pre-pectoral breast reconstruction. The quality of available information should be improved, especially the important topics included in the content data section of the modified EQIP tool.