An assessment of the quality and readability level of online content on urinary tract infection treatment in Spanish and English

The increasing incidence and prevalence of urinary tract infections (UTI) align with the internet's rise to mainstream usage. Today's new digital era has obliged patients to engage in online content relating to their health and well-being, including urological conditions. These recent shifts led this study to assess the quality and readability levels of UTI articles and YouTube videos with the highest online engagement in both English and Spanish. Google Trends was queried to analyze the popularity trends of the terms "UTI" and "infeccion urinaria" from November 2018 to November 2023. The DISCERN tool was utilized to assess the quality of the most popular UTI articles and videos in English and Spanish, determined by the content analyzer platform of BuzzSumo. The same materials had their readability levels assessed by two validated readability metrics in each language. Google Trends found "UTI" and "infeccion urinaria" were top search terms with average search volume index values of 79 and 81, respectively. For the DISCERN quality ratings, a small number of articles and videos in both languages were considered to be of high-quality content (with minimal shortcomings). Uniformly, the readability levels calculated across the four readability metrics displayed that most UTI online materials are being created above the recommended 6th-grade comprehension level for patients. Despite high demand, online UTI treatment information in English and Spanish falls short in both quality and readability. As such, patients could greatly benefit from insights provided by their healthcare providers concerning reputable and superior online sources of information.